Sides of the Same Coin
by Pirate Bathsheba
Summary: Celena-centric multi-part. How different are opposites, really? Maybe they aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe they shouldn't be. SPOILERS for the end of the series.
1. Prologue and AN

Author's Notes: 

First off: SPOILERS for the end of the Escaflowne TV series. Huge, massive, integral-to-plot spoilers.  In addition to spoiling yourself, it would be hard to understand what's going on in this fic without first seeing the series. So, you have been warned.

Escaflowne and all its characters belong to their respective owners, who are not me. This is a fanfiction for fun not profit, arright yo? 

There are no pairings. There is war-type violence, child abuse, and a little self-injury (though for different reasons than most of the instances we're familiar with).  Also, I would like to announce that in the course of writing this fic, I've made peace with Allen (whose guts I previously hated), mainly because without him, Celena would be screwed.    

I wrote this story because nobody else has written it (as far as I know) and it needs to be.  Every story I've seen that deals with Celena after the series ends is about either separation or conflict.  This story deals with both of those things, but is about something else.  This story grew from only one scene in my mind, and even that scene changed as it came out. I wish I was a more prolific writer and could attack this topic once I had become better at storycraft, but this will have to do.

Reviews are highly appreciated, criticism no less than praise. ________________________________________________________________________ Sides of the Same Coin 

________________________________________________________________________

The girl's origins were of no consequence. It didn't matter whose family she had come from. What was important was that she was young and female. The first quality was essential to the technological aspect of the project, as the body could only accept alterations up to a certain age. The second was a practical consideration, as a male ward of the state would be less troublesome, especially in the all-male company the child would be expected to keep once the experiments were finished.

The emperor's expectations, though strange, had been made very clear. After bringing the wonders of Science to Zaibach, he had proceeded to make startling new discoveries in destiny, luck and prognostication technologies.  Now, the capacities of the empire would be exercised in the most ambitious undertaking to date. They would attempt to change a person so completely that any future that would have been possible for them would be impossible. In other words, complete destiny alteration.  But not only would the destinies be different, they would be opposite, to fully extend the technology's capabilities. 

The lead Sorcerer had his doubts. Not that it could be done; he'd seen enough in the past year alone to convince him of the physical possibility. However, he didn't believe that the emperor had taken every aspect of a person into account. Would their personality be completely altered as well? All theory and evidence suggested that it would. What, then, would become of the sweet little girl? Much good it would do Dornkirk if, as a result of the experiment, she became cruel and unmanageable.  On the other hand, a lack of sensitivity would be an asset in a soldier. These questions needed to be addressed, the Sorcerer thought. 

But it was not his place to doubt the emperor.

***


	2. One

She was thin, and didn't fill out the armor she was wearing—it belonged to someone else. Strong arms held her tightly, the layers of leather and metal translating the embrace to an encompassing pressure which, for all its strength, did not serve to ground her.  It had been years, it felt like, since her skin had truly felt the touch of another.  For all that her brother was nearly squeezing the life out of her, she still couldn't feel _him_.  Maybe it was just the armor, but the distance between them was miles. 

"Brother….?" Celena stared uncertainly up into the face of a man she thought she might remember. His strong, handsome features were unstable with emotion.  She observed her own emotions through a glass barrier, and could not touch them in her dazed state.  It was the same with the outside world. In Celena's mind, all was silent, calm, and numb.

All action was frozen inside her, so she just stood there, letting herself be hugged by her big brother. After a moment, he pulled back, and drank up the sight of her face. 

"Oh, gods, Celena. I've missed you so much, I can't believe you're alive, I just—"  breaking off, Allen once again crushed Celena tightly to his chest.  The world static, he spoke a vow into her fine, white-blonde, sweat-streaked hair.

"I _swear_ I will protect you. I will let nothing harm you, ever again!"  

With those words, the glass wall inside Celena broke, and she was suddenly naked against the storm.  The entire world was dying, it seemed. She was hot and sweaty in that stiff uniform, and her body ached in various places from being thrown about inside the Alseides. Fire and bits of metal rained down upon the scorched earth, melefs staggered and lunged in the near and far distance.  Airships flew overhead, some of them smoking. These sights flooded Celena's eyes as the corresponding sounds flooded her ears: metal screeching on metal, the rumbling of earth as it was pummeled by melef and firearm alike. There were human noises too, screaming and begging and incoherent prayer, sniffling and moaning and vomiting. It was terrifying. 

She gasped out a sob and clutched Allen as her lifeline. The warmth and strength of her brother seemed like they would never fade, and his words assured her.  Everything else was fleeting and painful.

In an attempt to regain normalcy, Celena's mind tried to shut itself away from the world. First Allen, then the battle would fade in and out of reality, one seeming dream-like in one moment, the other, in the next. 

The heat, however, was not ethereal. Waves of it rolled off of fires, off of Allen, and from her own body. It was both unbearable and comforting.  With no memories, Celena had nothing to ground her. Only the insurmountable heat was constant. 

Looking around them, Allen released his sister.  "We have to get off this field."

The disoriented girl reluctantly let go of her brother, only to find him gripping her hand firmly and leading her to his own melef.  He pushed and pulled her up into the cockpit, where he squished in beside her. 

"I can't do much like this. It's a good thing the battle is mostly over. I'll get us back to basecamp, and then, I'll take you back to Asturia." 

Celena nodded, and tried to lean in such a manner that would give Allen maximum mobility. What else could she do?

_I'm scared._ She thought about the battlefield they had left behind, of the little she could see out of the viewslits. 

_This should mean something_, she thought. She knew she should know the whys and whos and hows of the battle. She remembered none of it.

She did remember clawing for breath and opening her eyes inside the darkened Alseides.

_This _does_ mean something. Why can't I remember?!_

She was scared.

***

Like a child, Celena grew day by day.  Already much matured, her body did not undergo rapid change. In fact, the only physical thing that seemed to change much at all was her hair. It grew quick and wild, and soon was past her shoulders.  Her brother had the old cook teach her how to pin it back and up, in several styles then popular among Asturian women.  

More notable was the growth of her mind. Fresh off the battlefield, Celena was disoriented, dependant, and frightened. However, it was discovered not three days afterward that she could read. 

_Allen walked into his father's old study. Yellow lamplight turned it into a landscape, the shadows making piles of books look like canyons. Though dim, it was that light that had led him there._

_"Celena? What are you doing in here?"  He looked cross, probably because his sister had disappeared from her room without a word, and so soon after such a big shock to her system. If Allen had had his say, she would remain in bed for another week._

_Celena looked up from the book in her lap. "Brother?" she asked, frowning slightly, "We're….we're in Asturia, aren't we?" She seemed uncertain._

_Allen was taken aback._

_"Yes…"_

_"Then, where is," she looked back down to the book, "Atlantis?" _

_Allen just stood there, jaw hanging open.  When he did speak, his voice was surprised and confused._

_"When...How...You can read?" _

_Celena nodded._

_"Ah...well, Atlantis was a very old city. It doesn't exist anymore." _

_"Oh."  _

_Shaking his head to clear it, Allen moved forward, and gathered his sister in his arms. _

_"Come on now. We're going back to your room. I don't want you wandering around like that again, is that clear?" He was stern, and Celena bowed her head in shame._

_"Yes, Brother."_

_"Good.  If…if you want another book to amuse yourself with, just ask."_

_The girl brightened. "Thank you!"  She twisted in his arms to kiss his cheek._

_Allen smiled. Well, a few books for his sister would be worth it, if it made her happy. Nothing about Atlantis, though, or the Mystic Moon nonsense his father had been obsessed with..._

_Or about Zaibach. _

_Allen nodded, making the decision to dig up some of Celena's old storybooks that night._

It was that way with the rest of her mental faculties.  While most knowledge about her world escaped her, certain skills, skills that were so well-learned as to be habitual, remained. Reading was one of them, as were simple things such as feeding and dressing herself (though she had trouble at first with the buttons on her dresses). Allen, and the others about the estate who knew Celena's secret, were afraid to find out what other skills the girl retained. 

Weeks passed, and Celena grew.  Her brother and caretakers were soon to realize that her mind was progressing at a rapid rate. Her ability to read was only the precursor; the girl absorbed knowledge in enormous quantities. Her perceptiveness and skills of analysis progressed more slowly, but these too were more each day.  As her mind approached the same maturity of her body, it became apparent that she was very intelligent. 

Allen kept good on his word, and the next evening after her discovery in their father's study, Allen brought a large stack of storybooks to Celena's bedroom.  She went through those in a matter of days, at which point Allen brought more. These too she finished quickly, and Allen started bringing in any book that didn't contain information that might…upset her. He supposed that the dry scientific texts and explorer's journals would bore her, but she devoured them as quickly as the storybooks.  While completely uninterested in accounts of battles (Allen was _greatly_ relieved), she seemed fascinated by books about animals and plants and far-off lands. She was even able to understand some of the more difficult science texts that had belonged to the elder Schezar.  

"Brother! Did you know that plants need food too, only not like ours? And they _make_ their own food, out of sunlight and water!"  She eagerly showed him a picture during one of his many visits to her room.

"Is that so?" He smiled good-naturedly. There was something different about him, though Celena could not have recognized it. With his sister at home again, Allen seemed at peace.

"Oh, it's amazing! That's why they're green, you know. The things inside them that turn light into food are green."

"That's fascinating! What else did you learn today?"  Celena smiled at his interest in her, and Allen smiled at seeing her happy and healthy. It was one of those beautiful moments in life, and while neither sibling would wish it to end, it was all the more perfect for its transience.  

***

She read the parchment, and did not remember learning to read. It was written in clean, flowing black ink, without a smudge or droplet in sight, immaculate on the thick white paper. The broken royal seal of Fanelia graced the envelope that Allen held in his hand. 

He had brought the document to his sister for several reasons. He knew that she loved to read, and he knew that she would be hurt if he didn't tell her the news. He also suspected that she would find out sooner or later anyway. He hadn't seen her outside her room except when he took her for strolls in the gardens, but sometimes he would notice objects being in slightly different places than he remembered, especially in his father's study. Fearful for his sister and what would happen if she were to happen upon delicate information, Allen began to lock the study. He wasn't sure that she was wandering around at night, so he didn't say anything to her, but he suspected. 

So, to forestall any of that, he brought the letter to her. 

The invitation was short and to the point, though not ungracious.  

_Allen Schezar, Caeli Knight of the Asturian Court:_

_You are cordially invited to Fanelia's celebration of her rebuilding.  As a past and present ally of Fanelia, your presence, and that of any guests, will be most welcome and desired at this joyous occasion._

_Please send your reply within a fortnight._

"Are you going?" Celena asked when she had finished.

"Yes," said Allen. "Van Fanel was an ally during the war, and a friend."

Celena tilted her head to the side a little.  "You know the king?"

Allen nodded. 

"What's he like?" 

Allen smiled at his sister's curiosity. "He's young, about your age. He's very dedicated to his country, which is an excellent quality in royalty. Odd, because he…I don't think he even really wanted to be king. He's very kind, though he's lost a lot of people dear to him, so he can be a little gruff." By the end of his monologue, his face had become serious again. 

Celena was a bit surprised; she hadn't expected the king to be so young, or so tragic.  And yet, all of it seemed familiar, in a way she couldn't pinpoint. This didn't bother her, because she was used to knowing things without knowing how she knew them, but this time, something deep inside her had shifted. It's displacement made her uncomfortable, though on a level she couldn't really register or understand.

After an appropriate amount of time had passed, Celena asked something of Allen, as she had not done before. 

"Brother….can I go with you?"

Allen made a valiant effort to dissuade his sister from going, but in the end, she managed to convince him that it would be good for her. He put his fears to rest by focusing on the fact that there hadn't been any problems with Celena so far, and anyway, she was getting more normal every day. Maybe a jaunt to see the outside world would do her some good. 

***

Reviews = happy author. You know you want to make me happy. 

***


	3. Two

AN: I got reviews! ::wiggles with happiness::  Special thanks to Serena B, Al, Rai Dorian, and Faraday for reviewing the last chapter almost as soon as it was up. (It really helped with my lazy-ass motivational problems. ^_~) I would also like to thank Rae, for being there to bounce ideas off of, and Cutter, who has been a source of inspiration.  

I still don't own anything. 

______________________________________________________________________________

Celena stared at Van.  There was something…..compelling about him. She had to look. 

Not to mention that he was handsome, and kind.  It was a different sort of kindness than her brother's, but she could still see it, and liked it.  She had first noticed it during the opening ceremony and celebration feast, but this was the first time she had seen him up close. 

They were standing on the balcony of the Fanelian palace.   The day looked to be stormy, with clouds amassing overhead and all around.  The midmorning light shone from behind them, lighting the city-state in a shadowless glow. 

She hadn't expected to see him there.  She had just been looking for a way to get outside. For all her begging Allen to go to the celebration, once the novelty wore off she was sorely homesick. All the buildings were different, the people were different, even her brother was different here, more distant and polished. But the sky remained the same as in Asturia, and so every day Celena would look for a new place to be outside for a little while. 

Van hadn't seen her yet. She wondered if she should hail him, or curtsy and wait for him to pass, or something else entirely. One of her regrets from the visit was that she was not practiced in court etiquette.  Biting her lip, she fretted about what to do, until Van shifted his weight a little, glanced to the side, and saw her.

The startled boy-king was instantly on his guard. His hand immediately went to the hilt of his sword while he crouched in a fighter's stance. Celena's eyes widened, and she felt her heart beat faster and her stomach clench. _What's happening? I feel sick…_

She felt extremely light-headed, and had to grab the railing to keep herself from falling, but managed to remain upright.  Van waited a few more moments, but when nothing happened, he withdrew his hand and stood up. He looked wary and confused.

"Celena Schezar, isn't it?" he asked her.

Celena nodded. "Y…Yes, Your Majesty." She might have curtseyed if she didn't think she was going to fall over.

"Ah."  It was little more than a grunt. _Wow. Allen wasn't exaggerating when he said Van was gruff._

A long, awkward silence began to stretch between the two.  Celena would have tried to break it, but she didn't feel it was her place to speak before the king.

_Or maybe I'm supposed to, if he wants me to? How would I know if he wants me to talk? Gods, this is tense…_ On top of it all, she still felt like she might faint, or throw up, or collapse in shivers. 

She was just about to excuse herself when everything happened at once. Van's eyes widened, and he threw himself forward while drawing his sword. Celena screamed and drew herself closer to the railing, half-crouching, half ducking, and shuddering as her heart raced and her head swam.  It felt like something inside her was breaking, a thick wall she hadn't even known existed—a wall built somehow behind her perception. The shock of being attacked by Van, the sickness, it all battered this wall.  Every piece of it that fell to rubble hurt her.  She cried and clutched her painfully tight chest.

Then, when she thought it couldn't get worse, she felt a darkness rush through the broken wall from her deepest core, wash over her body, and claw its way to her mind. In one, strong burst, it had claimed her, completely.  

With renunciation of control came total silence of perception.   There was no movement, where Celena was, and no more pain. She felt like she was dreaming. In her dream, she saw things from outside her body, and heard things without being there to experience sound.  The things she saw and heard, she experienced dispassionately, from a distance. None of it affected her at all.

Van was not attacking her, it turned out. Behind her body, there were ripples in the air, as a Doppelganger moved. Something glinted, Van dodged, and a throwing knife embedded itself in the floor of the balcony nearby.  In one clean stroke, the king killed the shape-shifter.  His sword came away bloody, and the attacker became visible as it fell to the floor with an audible thud. Van stood with his back to Celena, shoulders heaving, breathing heavily. 

Celena saw herself get up.   She saw herself rise with the help of the railing, turn around, and stride towards Van.  She came right up behind him, and leaned in to say something in his ear. The voice was hers but the tone was not.

"Hello, _Van_.  I've been waiting."  

The king spun around, his features incredulous.  Stepping back, he glared at the person before him.  

"Allen was right....."  he said in astonishment.

"Prepare to die, Van."  

It disturbed Celena how like and also very unlike her voice it sounded. She watched in detached horror as her body smiled a jackal smile, blue eyes burning, and threw itself at the king.

A primal scream tore from her throat that belonged entirely to the darkness now controlling her movements. 

Van was fast, but not fast enough. Not-Celena feinted a grab for Van's throat and at the last instant changed into a low kick to sweep his feet out from under him.  He fell hard, stunned for a moment, and the girl grabbed his sword.  She cackled triumphantly.  Celena's body was weaker than Van's was, however, and the king was able to wrench the weapon away.  Kicking his attacker away to get some space, Van righted himself and at the same time forced Not-Celena up against the wall of the palace.  She screamed in rage and thrashed violently, landing a blow to the boy's kidneys.  All Van did was grunt.  Lunging in close, he successfully pinned her, and held his sword to her throat so that she couldn't move.

"GUARDS! ALLEN!" Van bellowed.

His eyes burned so fiercely that Celena felt it in her dream-state. His anger and hatred burned a path through the haze to seize her, and she could not look away.  _Oh gods_….. A sick sense of realization swept through her. It was not a dream anymore. Not even a nightmare. It was too real, even though she had no control and existed in a swath of sensory depravation.  She cowered in her mind before the harsh violence of what was happening, transfixed by Van's pain even as the darkness sneered with her face and spoke with her mouth.

"This is far from over. I will kill you."

The sword at Celena's throat pressed a little harder. From a distance, she could feel it getting harder to breathe. 

"If you weren't Allen's sister, _I would kill you_." 

.He's in so much pain…What's going on?! 

All the darkness did was smirk.  Celena thought it might start to say something else, but guards rushed in, along with Allen.

"Van! What is the meaning of this?!"  Allen was _angry_.

Still glaring for all he was worth, the king answered with one word.

"Dilandau."

Allen inhaled sharply, and his features changed from angry to still stone, and spoke to the guards. "Seize the girl, make sure she can't move, but DO NOT hurt her in any way."

If surprised, the guards didn't show it. After a nod from Van, two of them moved forward, each grabbing an arm.  Van didn't completely move his sword until Celena was securely in the grasp of the two burly men, arms pinned behind her back.  The thing inside her chose that moment to struggle, violently.  Celena winced internally as her body lashed out at the guards and her voice yelled wordlessly in angry frustration.  The mental cloak was thinner now, she could feel the edges of sensation leaking through to where she was…..or was she closer to the outside? Still, she didn't have control yet, and the darkness used her only free limbs to kick one of the other guards in the groin. The man fell to his knees, and two more guards rushed in, this time wrapping strong arms around the girl's legs. Despite the ferocity of her struggles, she could not get free.  

The thing inside her screamed. 

Van, Allen and the rest of the guards had stepped back a little. The king glanced at Allen.  "The cells?" 

Allen didn't even pause before nodding. "Make it as comfortable as possible without compromising security."

At a gesture from Van, the guards carried the girl inside. He and Allen followed silently, and the other guards were dismissed.

As they made their way through the newly rebuilt Fanelian palace, Celena stared numbly at the ceiling. She watched it pass by, change every now and then, and heard the sounds of the guards' footsteps underneath her. The firm grips they had on her legs, arms, shoulders and waist faded into the all the other sensory noise in her head. There was plenty of it, generated by the dark energy that claimed her mind. Celena floated in a sea of someone else's frustration and blind rage.  It washed over her, insulation from the world.  She was not thinking about anything. 

She floated in her mind as they carried her down the corridors. She noted a brief, sharp prick in her neck after a while, and did not care.  The ceiling was white plaster. The soldiers continued moving her, and the last thing she saw was a gray stone ceiling, and her brother leaning over her. He might have been covering her with a blanket.

Everything let go, and she slept.

***


	4. Three

Woo, sorry for the long wait. ^_^;;  It's this annoying thing that happens with the way I write, I get out the scenes I like first, then I have to write the other stuff, that holds the plot together and develops characters subtly. Damn subtlety.  ^_~

But I finished this part, and I even enjoyed the second half, probably because I was just struck upside the head by the inspiration fairy.  I hope you enjoy, and constructive criticism is always appreciated, as is glowing praise. 

So, story:

***

Surrounded by flames, Celena was at the center of a war. The violence rushed around her, roaring in her ears and sweeping everything in its path into chaos. There was an objective: destroy the enemy. She knew this and moved her body accordingly. 

It was night. The firelight added to the confusion, and the red tint on everything. There was heat. 

Celena turned her melef to skewer another enemy with liquid metal. Once she had the other melef pinned, she incinerated it with her flame thrower. She felt a smile curve her lips. The more she burned, the more the flames licked away at the darkness.  She could feel it all around her, pressing in and trying to crush her.  She spun in a half-circle, immolating enemies and innocent bystanders alike, and putting a wall of fire between herself and the void. She could feel herself laughing—they'd never get her!

Burning things made it impossible for her to think about anything. People were nothing, and she did not care whose side she was on. The darkness would follow her everywhere, and everyone was a destroyer—what did it matter where the fire was?  It was a harsh world, one where she fed her soul to the void to escape it.

But right now, things were on fire, and life was good.

***

One moment, she was asleep, and the next, Celena was awake. She opened her eyes and sat up, to see her brother standing against the wall across from her. There was a wall of iron bars between them, and Allen quickly made his way to stand as close to Celena as he could, going so far as to hold the bars in front of him. 

"How do you feel?"  He inquired, looking a bit worse for the wear. That fact made Celena even more worried than she had been at waking up in a cell.

"I'm alright…I feel sort of...fuzzy…Allen, what's going on?"  As she answered, she sidled across the bed to the end that was against the wall of bars and took her brother's hand. 

Allen sighed. 

"What do you remember last?" he asked softly.

Celena frowned, nothing coming to mind at first.  A fragment of a dream passed her by, but she dismissed it as what it was. Then, she remembered seeing Van on the balcony, watching the stormy sky with him, worrying about what she should say. Then the horrible sick feeling, and then…

Oh gods…

Reflexively, Celena looked away, trying to hide from the bad memory. Just as quickly she looked back at her brother, a stricken look on her face.

"Is Van alright?!"

"Yes, he's fine…a little upset, but he's fine."  

Celena thought of something else.

"Am I in trouble? I mean, there has to be a severe penalty for attacking the king…I don't know what happened, but I never intended to hurt him! It's like I was in a dream…"

"You're not in trouble, not yet. Nobody else knows for sure what's going on, but we have an idea, and we know that _you_ didn't attack Van."

"What do you mean? If it wasn't me….Allen, what happened?" 

Allen looked at his sister for a long while, considering.  His face set, and he nodded to himself. Letting out the breath he had been holding, he looked his sister solemnly in the eyes.

"We might be here for a while. Make yourself comfortable." 

Allen stepped back to retrieve a chair from further down the corridor, and he positioned himself on it in front of her bed.  Resting his head in his left hand, he stared at the bricks of the cell wall behind Celena's head. 

"I didn't want to tell you before, because I thought it might upset you, or cause an episode like what happened today." Allen sighed. "You're a girl, you shouldn't have to deal with things like this….I wanted to protect you."  

He paused, thinking of what to say next. Celena waited patiently.

"I told you a little about the war….I fought in it, and so did Van.  He and I were on the same side, and even though we had…differences, we still became friends. 

"On the other side of the war was Zaibach. They were using their technology to invade and conquer the neighboring territories, and they were moving in on Asturia, Freid, and Fanelia. They had very strong forces, thousands of soldiers, airships, advanced melefs, flamethrowers….There was a certain group of soldiers that Van and I fought with the most. There were about fifteen of them, and they all had state-of-the-art guymelefs, and they were all elite fighters. They were the ones that burned Fanelia.  

"The leader of this group, Dilandau, was the best of them, and a very key part of the Zaibach army. He was ruthless, bloodthirsty…

"When you were six years old, you disappeared from the field near our house. Our parents and I searched everywhere, for days, but we couldn't find you. Later, much later, during the war, you wandered back into our house…do you remember?"

Celena was wide-eyed, taking in so much information at once. She shook her head.

"I didn't think you did….anyway, you had come back, and after a while, I discovered that…."

Allen ran a tired hand through his hair, sighing.

"Part of Zaibach's advantage was from technology, I told you. They were very advanced in science and medical areas as well as militarily. They performed experiments on people, probably a lot more than we know about…one of these experiments is what produced Dilandau.

"The person who they experimented on to get Dilandau….was you."

Celena stared. She couldn't understand what her brother had just told her, though she was trying. She had a million questions, but above all that was the certainty that such a thing was impossible. She said as much.

"How do you know that I used to be him? And you said he was a boy…how is that even possible?"

"I don't know how they did it, Celena, I just know that they did, because I saw you turn into Dilandau in the cemetery."  He took hold of her shoulders and forced her to look at him. "If nothing else, I hope my word is enough to convince you of this."

_He's serious. He really means this. Could he be wrong? He's an honest man, he's not lying to me, but he could be wrong.  He said he saw me turn into Dilandau, at a graveyard…_

_***_

_Flashes of light, blue with clouds, sunlight slanting from behind. A breeze, white stones standing in the ground. Allen's solid presence behind and to the right.   Movement, fluttering, white wings…pretty. Flutter flutter flutter. Up and down and flutter and up and catch! _

Gotcha. 

_Smile. I have the pretty. _

_Now, something rising up, like bile, something bursting out from inside. Scary, afraid, strong black thing too strong going to get me going to do something going to—_

Free.

***

For the second time, Celena woke up in a cell.  This time, no one was around. The little window high in the wall had no light. 

She felt horrible, and didn't know why. It took nearly a full minute to remember.

Oh, right. I attacked the king of Fanelia, because there's a monster inside me.  Silly me, how could I forget?

She stood up and paced around the cell a bit. It felt good to stretch her legs. 

Celena had walked from the bed, to the far wall, to the bars, to the window, and back to the bed five times when she suddenly felt like she was suffocating.  

These damned skirts! 

Reaching behind herself, she managed to unbutton her dress, though not without effort.  _Why do they have so blasted many?_  She practically tore the offending garment off, and threw it in a pile on the floor.  Now all that was left was her underlinens, consisting of pantaloons and a sleeveless shirt. 

Much better. 

Heh. If Allen could see her now. 

With that thought, Celena deflated.  Sinking to the bed, she sat against the wall with her legs pulled up under her and her head in her hands. 

Everything is wrong.  I wish Allen would come back. 

She started crying, so she didn't hear Allen until he was in front of her cell.

"Celena! Oh, you look terrible, I knew I shouldn't  have left…"

The girl turned her puffy, tear-streaked face towards her brother. When he enveloped her in his arms, she clung to him and wept all the harder. 

"I'm—so—scared. I remember, Allen, I remember the butterfly, in the graveyard, and I—c-could feel him—inside, coming out—"

"Shh, shh, we're going to figure this out, we'll get you a doctor, a scientist, someone who can make him go away."

"You think we can?" Celena sniffled.

"I'll do whatever it takes to get you back to normal."

Allen stood, and lifted Celena upright with him. "Put your dress on. We're leaving."

Thank the gods. She dressed quickly, and followed her brother out of the cell. He paused at the doorway to the rest of the palace, putting the keys back on their wall peg.  Up the stairs, she watched the shadows on Allen's back move as he walked by torches set in the stone walls. As they emerged out into the palace proper, the building changed to wood supports and whitewashed walls. Things were more open aboveground, more peaceful. Shadows were a soft blue. 

Celena waited as Allen woke the horsemen, trailing along behind him as he organized their party to return to Asturia and the Schezar estate. It all took less than an hour, but it felt very long and tedious.

I just want out of here.

Finally, the carriage was ready, all their things were packed, and the groggy servants were at their posts. Celena felt like she should be tired too, but her mind kept her wide awake. 

No thoughts, just noise.  ….gray, buzzing, fearful…

Could they fix this? It seemed impossible. It felt like there was something gripping her torso, a constant pressure: anxiety. Only one step away from despair, and that step was hope.

"We need to look at the books."

Allen started at Celena's statement. "Books?"

"Father's. You locked the study when I started reading about Zaibach, so I never really found out anything about them, but maybe there's something in those books that will help."

Damn. She had known.  Not that Allen should be surprised, with her mind. He nodded.

"You're right. Once we get back I—we—can start looking through them."

Celena smiled through her worry.  "Thank you, brother."

Allen hugged the girl with one arm, both of them rocking with the movement of the carriage.  She was all he had left, and damned if he was going to lose her again. 

***


	5. Four

Eh, this is a bit shorter than usual. 

I still own nothing.

Much thanks to Etowato and Serena B, who left evidence that someone is still reading this fic.

"Have you found anything since lunch?"

Allen shook his head. "What about you?" He asked, nodding at the large pile of books sitting on the floor beside his sister. 

"The only things about Zaibach technology are about guymelefs, siege engines, things like that. I don't think that anyone outside of the government knew about their other experiments."

"Probably not."  Allen sighed.

Celena looked dejectedly at the book in her lap. She and her brother had been in their father's study for the past four days, sometimes even sleeping there. They had finished looking through all the books, papers, journals, and various knickknacks left around the small, crowded room. So far all they had found were descriptions of Zaibach weapons technology, a bit about the political system, and more snippets and false leads to Atlantis than Celena had thought existed.

The last book, and nothing.  She glared at it. 

"We're not going to find me a cure, are we."

"Don't talk like that." Allen was a bit sharp with her, if only because she had said what he feared was true.

Subdued by her brother's anger, she replied softly. 

"Sorry." 

Allen sighed again. Celena wondered if he was going to make a habit of it. 

"You're _sure_ you haven't been bothered by him since Fanelia."

Celena shook her head. "Nothing. No dreams, or flashbacks, or…darkness."

"Maybe you don't need a cure. All you have to do is avoid Van, and you'll be fine."

The girl frowned. "I don't like the idea of just leaving some horrible mass murderer in my head."

"Neither do I, but if it's not an immediate concern, we can keep our eyes open, ask other people what they think. Since it doesn't seem to be an emergency anymore, we have the luxury of time to think things through."

It made a sort of sense, though Celena was still worried. "I guess I feel alright….but…what if…I don't know."

Her voice was very small. She felt at a loss, uncertain. _Dammit. I don't want to do what Allen is suggesting, but I can't think of anything else I want to do, either. _

"I'm going for a walk," she announced. 

Allen didn't want to fight his sister about something he knew would make her feel better. "Be back by dinner."

Mildly surprised, Celena left, hoping to find calm in the plants and sky outside her home. 

The path she took ran west from behind the house.  Tall evergreens populated the slopes of the mountains on either side of the valley the Schezar estate was built in, and the undergrowth was comprised mainly of shrubs.  The western half of the sky was streaked with cirrocumulus clouds, which glowed as the afternoon rays hit them from behind.   Staring at the sky helped distract Celena from her problems, though it took a good twenty minutes of vigorous walking to burn away her frustration completely.  

As she walked, she enjoyed the feel of the air against her skin. The cool breeze felt almost chill, but while she was moving it was invigorating rather than cold.  The sunlight on her back warmed her shoulders, and the movement itself felt good.  As she crested a hill, her legs pushed her upwards, her lungs sucked in fresh air, and her blood pumped through her veins. It was an intensely physical experience, made more so as the natural world around her supported her weight, her breath.  In love with the feeling, Celena reached out to touch each tree she passed, caressed the leaves of shrubs and bent down to grasp the dirt.  

Sweating and loving it, she flopped down in a clearing.  She lie on her back spread-eagled for a moment, then rolled over to smell the dark earth.  Closing her eyes, she dug her fingers into the soil, and was glad of the light summer dress that had no sleeves. She laughed as a small plant tickled her arm, and opened her eyes to stare at clover from a foot away.

_I haven't done this for nine years_, she suddenly thought.  _Not like this_. 

She knew that none of the facts her brother had given her meant that Dilandau had never done this, but she was no less certain for the lack of proof.  Plants, clouds and dirt had never been endearing to the warlord.  To Dilandau, trees were for burning.

_Nine years of my life as another person..._  She shuddered.  _Nine years of Celena lost._

This body is sixteen years old, but the time I've spent as Celena has only been seven years.  I don't feel like a child, but why not?  

The thoughts churned in her mind, as she boiled them down to answers.

I can read, but I didn't learn that from Allen.  I learned it in Zaibach.  I guess that means I learned other things there too.  

She didn't want to think about some of those other things.  Fighting, piloting, killing.  Nothing she wanted.

Her next thought scared her too.  _I grew up there.  That's why I don't act like a seven-year-old.  _

_And if I retained that development…_

_It means that I was there too._

Where? Where could she have been? Somewhere deep inside his mind, the way he was deep inside hers now?

If they could inhabit one another's psyches, what were they to each other?  She had thought of Dilandau as a sort of phantasmic creation imposed upon her by a terrible alien power, but this newest development begged the question of which one of them was more real.

Even this body changed. 

But it didn't change when she had last seen Van.  Allen had told her how much it frightened him to see his archenemy glaring at him from his sister's face. 

Why hadn't she changed then? Was there some sort of trick to it?

_Maybe Zaibach was keeping him him, somehow.  I haven't been there for eight months, so they can't do that anymore. _

_If they had to keep him him, then I'm more real._

As she looked up into the falls of sunlight through the branches, she couldn't help but wonder to herself:

_How real?_


	6. Five

Woo, long time since the last update. I'm sorry!    

Many thanks to the people who have reviewed.  I hope you're still reading this. ^_^;;

---------------

It was sunny again, or rather, it was sunny for the first time. For the first time since before, there was natural light. Burning, streaming, warm, and so, so bright: an environmental aspect that had been nearly forgotten, in The Room.  Bars of the stuff protruded from between the open, glassless windows of the practice yard, illuminating the large room. It was filled with racks of weapons, marked-off sparring grounds, and a few benches. Thirty small boys stood in a clump near the main doors, curiously examining their surroundings. 

Dilandau stared at them. None had seen him or the Sorcerer yet, and unaware of their superior, they seemed careless and vulnerable. Some of them were talking amongst themselves, and Dilandau wondered what that would be like. 

Now moving forward, the Sorcerer guided Dilandau to the group. As they moved, the boys finally noticed their presence. 

To Dilandau's shock they did not seem to recognize the Sorcerer.  Certainly they seemed nervous around him, but it was what they would show around any adult in an unfamiliar situation.  _They don't know...Am I the only one?_

"Boys."  It was said to get their attention, and it worked. All became quiet under that imposing tone. "This is Dilandau. He will be training as one of you."  

After a silence, a few of the children blinked. Was that all?

With that, the cloaked man left.  Dilandau suddenly felt giddy. No adults! He could do whatever he wanted.

"You," he directed at a nearby, placid-looking boy, "who are you guys and why are you here?"

The other boy looked confused. "We're going to be melef pilots. This is melef school. Don't you know?"

Dilandau glared at the boy as he digested this. Well, the old man _had_ said that he'd begin training soon. He supposed that that's what this was. Melefs? He wondered what those were, but he refrained from asking, having already admitted a lack of knowledge.

After a moment or two, the boys decided to get on with their training. Four of them picked up staves from a nearby rack and started to go at each other with them.  Laughter, pre-pubescent battle cries, and loud clacks of wood on wood filled the room. 

Dilandau watched them for a few seconds, and decided that he could do better.  Picking up a staff of his own, he circled around the group of fighting boys.  They continued to spar in pairs, oblivious to the rest of the room.  

Dilandau smiled. This was too easy.  

Quick as his seven-year-old muscles would carry him, he struck out at the nearest boy's feet and tripped him. Crying out in surprise, the boy looked around, only to have his staff knocked out of his grip.  Moving on, Dilandau toppled the other three boys in the same manner, though he only disarmed one other. 

"That's not fair!" screamed the first boy.

The other kids were watching now. 

Dilandau smiled again.  "What's ever fair? You were careless, and I took advantage of it."

Hearing this, the first, disarmed boy rushed at Dilandau in a rage. Inexperienced with the staff, Dilandau held it in front of him as a barrier. The other boy grabbed for Dilandau's arms and head while trying to kick his legs out from under him. Fighting in earnest now, Dilandau snarled, twisted the staff, and sent the other boy tumbling to the ground. Once there, Dilandau kicked the boy soundly in the kidneys and stomach, and then swung the end of the staff hard into the boy's skull. 

Everything in the room stopped. The boy on the floor wasn't moving, and Dilandau stood breathing heavily, facing all the other boys, who stared at him.  

_I beat him and I could beat any one of you, too.  _

The boys who hadn't gotten creamed by their new classmate drew themselves into a tight knot.  Those who had been sparring and were staying as still as possible, so as not to attract attention.  Dilandau felt he should say something, though he couldn't think that any words would be as effective as what he had just did.  

The boy on the floor still wasn't moving, and the ruby-eyed boy looked down in detached curiosity.  A bit of blood was oozing onto the floor from the boy's temple. Dilandau couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. 

"What's going on in here?"

Everyone jumped at the commanding voice except Dilandau.  He merely looked up.

The boys looked fearfully between Dilandau and the melef school's commander, trying to decide which one would be worse to get on the wrong side of.  A few of them respected authority, and pointed towards the violent, pale one. One of them spoke up.

"Some of us were sparring, and he attacked them while they weren't looking."

The commander looked at the boy on the floor and then at Dilandau, who felt that he somehow unsettled the man. 

_Heh. Even the adults are afraid of me._

"There will be no more fights against unarmed opponents, and no more fighting outside of this room at all. Understood?"

Dilandau looked steadily back at the teacher. 

"Only if those fools don't piss me off anymore."

The teacher frowned, but apparently didn't feel like pressing the issue.  After he had sent the fallen boy off to the medic, he turned around and started teaching all of the boys how to really fight. Nobody wanted to be Dilandau's partner, but none of them dared refuse.  In addition to their fear of Dilandau, they likewise feared the commander. He was a hard master, and apparently the other boys knew him.  Dilandau had never met him before, and could hardly fear someone who was afraid of an albino seven-year-old.  The only one Dilandau feared was the Sorcerer.

Throughout the practice, Dilandau marveled at the sunlight. When he was returned to the depths of the building, he remembered its warmth and brightness. It burned so beautifully.  

***

She woke up in a terrified rush of will to escape a formless evil.  No sound, no words, no images, but she could still feel its presence.  Jumping out of bed, she strode to the window and threw open the curtains. 

Sunlight blinded her and threw the room into morning.  When she could open her eyes, they were still watering, but everything looked so much more alive in the sunlight. 

I'm alive.

_And I'm not _there_ anymore. _

She thought this with a desperate relief.  Heart pounding, she only stopped for shoes before she ran out into the hallway and out of the house. 

Celena set out running east across one of the fields of the Schezar estate. It was built in a valley that ran east-west, the house and several fields settled in a hilly area between the sharp crags of the mountains.   She ran away from the house, downhill to where she jumped across a small gully, past trees and through a thicket, and eventually met the road leading away to the city. Her lungs were starting to give out by that time, and she slowed to a walk when she turned southward towards the fence between the house grounds and the pastures. Being summer, it hadn't rained in a while so the road was dusty, and the sky only carried a few clouds. The early morning light streaming into valley tinged things gold and pink, and cast long shadows.  To the north and south, Celena could see sharp mountain peaks. The Asturian Peaks were not the highest mountains in Gaea, but they, along with the coastline, were famed for their beauty.  

Celena agreed.  When she got to the fence, she climbed up and sat on it and gazed out in awe across the earth. Green and brown grasses stretched out before her, with clover flowers occasionally dotting the landscape.  On the far side of the pastures, steep foothills, the walls of the valley, rose up.  Large, grayish-brown boulders collected in this area, and the incline exposed patches of bare dirt. The rocks, she thought, made the vegetation more interesting. 

Celena breathed it in. 

Beautiful. Beautiful and open and light.

By the time she had gotten to the fence, the sun was a little higher, and the pink tinges were gone. The morning breeze blew the girl's hair all around her face, but she was too preoccupied with basking in Gaea to be annoyed at that for the moment.  After a few minutes passed she reached behind her head to plait the unruly mass. Her inexperienced fingers left bits of hair sticking out in every direction, and the braid itself curled towards her left shoulder rather than being centered, but it got the majority of her hair out of her face, so she was satisfied.  She didn't have any of her ribbons, so she let her curls and unbrushed tangles hold the braid together instead. 

After she had looked in every direction several times, Celena turned her attention back to the dream.

_That was the most real thing I've ever seen while I wasn't awake_. 

She knew it had to be one of Dilandau's memories, and the entire experience unsettled her deeply. A murderer being in her head was frightening enough. Being inside his head, even for a little while, meant a variety of things that Celena didn't want to deal with. 

_I felt what he felt. Fear, anger, triumph…_

_Hate_. 

She could still feel the staff in her hands, still see the boy's face as hard wood connected with his unprotected body.  

_I think he killed him_. She felt his detached curiosity, his pleasure at completely dominating his opponent. That really frightened her. _Gods, he was just a child, and he killed that kid in a fit of…_boredom_…and he enjoyed it. Is that who I was for eight years?_

She looked out onto the fields, briefly focusing on the landscape.  

Sunlight. 

_He loved the sunlight. Everything else about his life was dark…I don't know exactly what went on in The Room, but I don't think it was very nice.  _

_Sorcerers…_

A chill went down her spine. She still had no facts, but the dream-memory had shown her that Dilandau's feelings towards the men in black were full of fear and despair.  

_I don't _like_ this! Sorcerers, terrible things that I didn't want to know about, child murder. It's horrible, I can't believe that they would be that heartless to just let them behave like animals.  I can't believe that they could do something that would make one child that hateful. _

But they did.

_He wasn't entirely hateful, I suppose.  I can't hate someone who I've looked through the eyes of. His actions, surely. But he was still human._

_Is still human?_

She looked over the hills, their shadows overlapping one another.  She loved the way the light made things look.

I guess we can agree on that, at least. 

Celena sighed, and hung her head down, suddenly weary. This morning, things had gotten more complicated. 

Gods, what's happening to me? 

Swinging her legs over the fence, she hopped down and started the walk back to the house. If Allen was up, he'd be worried.

When she got back to the manor house, she found her brother poised in front of her door about to knock.  

He smiled.  "Well, you beat me to it."

She chuckled a little in response. "I felt like a bit of air before breakfast."

He gestured disdainfully at her state of undress. "And didn't feel the need to get dressed? Really, you'll catch a cold."

She shrugged. "I kind of forgot to."

Allen frowned.  "Are you feeling alright?"

"Yes…well…I had a dream…"  She began quietly and then trailed off.  Her brother's stare made her feel guilty.  "I-I'm going to get dressed now."

He put up no resistance as she slipped past him into her room.  Leaning against the closed door, she sighed.

"Celena, we'll talk about this at breakfast, alright?"

"Yes, Allen."

"Good. I'll see you in a few minutes."

Since she had left, the sunlight had changed in the room. It was no longer shining full-force through the open window, but still illuminated the room well. 

She crossed to the window and pulled the curtains slightly more closed before opening her wardrobe and selecting a dress.  She chose the most uncomfortable one, the one that was most proper.  _Proper means sane, right?_

She unbraided and brushed out her hair, and tied it back with ribbons.  Gazing at her reflection, she sighed again.

I hope Allen can help.  I'm sorry he has a lunatic for a sister.

When she sat down in the dining room, Allen was already there and drinking tea.  When the cook saw her arrive, she brought out the food.  It was biscuits and jam, fried fish, and a squash Celena recognized from the garden.  Modest fare, but prepared well.

She poured herself some tea.  

…

"Celena?"  Allen waited for her to look up. "What sort of dream was it?"

She looked back down at her plate.  "It…wasn't very clear," she said, frowning. "It was really just a feeling, of something dark and horrible trying to overtake me."

Allen looked worried. "Are you sure it wasn't real? He could be trying to control you again, now that he's had a chance to rest."

"I…no…maybe…"  She swallowed. "I mean, it's possible…he was trying to do something, but I don't think it was about taking control of me…he was more _running_ from something…"

"Why do you think that?"

"Well…before, with Van…the main emotion was rage, or hate. This time, it was fear."  She looked her brother straight in the eye. "And I woke up me, after all."

"Hn. True."  He bowed his head slightly over clasped hands, frowning into space. 

Celena continued eating.  She concentrated fiercely on her plate, feeling bad in general about the whole situation and guilty because she hadn't told Allen what had really bothered her.  

In her dream, she had _been_ Dilandau.  _It's silly of me. I was more Dilandau in Fanelia…Allen _knows_ that we're connected…_

Even so, she couldn't help but feel that the dream was far more intimate than was right.


	7. Six

YES! Another chapter! I apologize for the extra-long delay. It is a bad habit of mine. Bad! Bad Alex!

Believe it or not, this story is nearing completion. And hopefully ::crosses fingers:: I'll be able to update again in the next few weeks.

Reviews and constructive criticism are always appreciated.

Thanks to Spinereader and Skippy's Cat for reviewing the last chapter. Über-special-AWESOME thanks to Faraday, who has stuck with me since Chapter 2. And thanks to Serena B, Etowato, Rai Dorian, and Azaz the Unabridged for hopefully possibly PLEASE? continuing to read this fic.

Enjoy!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

After breakfast, Allen collected his traveling gear. "Where are you going?" Celena asked. Her brother's long blonde hair partially obscured his face as he bent over a mud-splotched leather bag. "_We_ are going to the capital. They need me there on business, and while I can't get out of it, I can't leave you here alone, either." He stopped fussing with the buckles and straps, sighing. "This war hasn't been easy on anyone, and cleaning up is almost as bad as the actual fighting…" Celena was unsurprised to find herself again in her brother's fierce embrace, her view reduced to Caeli Knight blue and out-of-focus strands of gold. She returned the gesture with her own fierce hug.

"I wish I could stay here at home with you," Allen said softly into the top of her head. "This never should have happened to you."

"Brother," Celena said, moving back, "Don't blame yourself."

She had no idea how she looked to Allen then, standing in the sun-streaked golden aura created by their hair. She had no idea that her smile, meant to be reassuring, gave Allen the impression that he was holding an angel.

"Why shouldn't I?" His sadness showed in his voice and face. _Allen shouldn't be sad. Allen shouldn't hate himself for what those monsters did!_

Celena drew herself up, righteously angry on behalf of her chivalrous sibling.

"What those people did had nothing to do with you! It could have happened to anyone, in fact, it did happen to many people. And besides, without you, I wouldn't have survived to be here now. You keep saving me. You've always saved me. And…" she gulped slightly and looked down, "and you listened to me. About him."

"You're the only one who knows what it's like," said Allen. "Although," he continued, "I don't think I would have, before the war." Celena looked at him curiously, wanting to ask why. Before she could form the words, however, Allen told her.

"I always believed in my sword, in strong walls. Things I could touch.

"There was a girl, about your age, who came from the Mystic Moon. She came by a sort of magic, the magic of the Atlanteans that makes will into power. She claimed to be able to see the future, and I didn't believe her.

"But she was right. There was something I couldn't see, and it was true. I grew to care for her, and I wanted to protect her from everything, the same way I want to protect you from everything.

"But I couldn't. I would have put her somewhere safe, somewhere far away. But no walls could have protected her from her destiny. I was trying to save her from the choices she had to make, and it was through her choices that we were all saved.

"So, I still want to keep you safe and far away. But I know that locking you away and not listening to you isn't the way to do that."

_Now that Hitomi's gone and Father's ghost is laid to rest, you're the only thing keeping me on my path, _he suddenly realized._ Though there's a demon in you, you're still an angel, and you're the one who's saved me._ Allen contemplated his dumbstruck sister a little longer. Then, glancing at the clock, he became all business again. "I'll tell you the full story sometime," he promised. "Right now, you need to pack some clean clothes and whatever books you'll need for two weeks." And with that, he strode away and out the door, across the field and to the stable.

A slow, surprised grin spread over Celena's face. "Well, I suppose I'll pack, then," she said to the clock, and went back to her room.

As she mentally planned her luggage, her smile faded.

_I'll bring this dress, the nice one in case we have to go to dinner, the comfy blue one in case I get tired of being proper, my night shift, two sets of underthings, these shoes, the good shoes, boots, a few ribbons, my brush, The History of Gaea, Plant Physiology, Collected Fables and Folklore of Fanelia, and Father's fifth journal, my second journal, Mother's necklace, and the monster in my head. Can't leave him._

She turned and hiked out to the stables herself, lugging her two traveling bags with her. As she opened the outside door, the light momentarily blinded her.

_Gods. I wish I could leave his memories even more._ Remembering her dream, how close she had felt to that monster, how she had _been_ Dilandau, she felt a sense of dread oozing over her, followed by hopelessness.

I'm never going to escape. I can't escape, I was him, maybe he's me...He'll always be there, I'll always be a danger to everyone, Allen and any friends I happen to make and especially Van…

_No!_ The despair triggered grief and determination. They welled up in her as she gave her bags to Allen to tie to the horses' saddles. _I can't let Dilandau get Van or anyone. I don't want to be a killer, and I don't want to make Allen sad._

She wanted to vow bravery and strength and victory over the evil inside her. She wanted to be as unequivocal as her brother's sense of justice. But she couldn't. It was all she could do to hope in the face of all that fear, let alone try to vanquish it.

_I am a small, weak thing._

She got onto the horse feeling almost nauseous with dread. She forced a smile for Allen while he helped her into her stirrups, but the world around her was fading to inconsequence beside the problem of her inner demon, and she made much of the journey staring fixedly at the back of her horse's head.

When they arrived in the capital, Celena and Allen were greeted by a beautiful sunset and the royal family. Feeling generally miserable, Celena hung back, content to let her brother do the talking. She was too tired to interact with strangers.

"Allen! It's so good to see you! I'm so glad, I thought we'd never see each other for months, with everything." After dismounting, Celena looked up to see a blonde woman hugging Allen. _Maybe that's Millerna_, she thought. A look at the woman's wardrobe brought a start of surprise. _Allen never said anything about _pants.

The woman turned in time to see Celena looking at her with a puzzled expression.

"Oh Allen, she looks just like you!" the princess exclaimed. Walking over to the reticent Celena, the older girl caught the younger in a cheerful hug. "It's a pleasure to have you visiting us! I'm not sure how busy I'll be, but I hope we can spend lots of time together and be friends!"

"Uh…thank you…" murmured Celena uncertainly. She looked pleadingly at her brother. _You never said anything about making friends!_

If Allen understood her horror at being confronted with someone so overwhelmingly bubbly, he ignored it. "I'm sure you will be. You two have much in common."

_Is he joking?! Her personality is all over the place!_

Before she could brood over it any longer, they were ushered through the palace to their rooms in the guest quarters. Normally Allen had a place in the special Caeli barracks, but he wanted to stay close to Celena. Their small but comfortable rooms were next door to each other, on the third floor with windows overlooking the bay. Celena could not remember seeing the ocean.

"It's amazing," she said, captivated by the view through the glass. "The way it moves…it's beautiful."

"It's one of my favorite things about the capital," said Millerna, coming to stand beside Celena. "I don't get to go to the seashore nearly often enough."

She turned suddenly to the younger girl, an excited smile on her face. "Oh! I could take you there while you're here! We could pack food and go swimming. It would be lovely to get away from all the official business for a day. What do you think?"

Celena was still not used to talking with much of anyone besides Allen, and the princess's benign interest in her was overwhelming. "I…would like to see the ocean." She blushed at her verbal clumsiness and looked at her feet. "It is gracious of you to offer."

The bubbling princess smiled her dazzling smile. "Wonderful! I'll talk to people about arranging it. We can go in a few days, once you've gotten used to everything.

"I'm sorry, but I have to leave you now. Many things to get done," she excused herself, leaning in to hug Celena one last time. Then she turned and left, a whirlwind of hair and cheer.

Celena sank to the chair beside the window. _What was that?_ She'd never met anyone like the princess.

_She's nothing. Why should she intimidate me? So she talks a lot, so what. I answered her just fine, didn't I? _

_So tired._

She started to undress for sleep. _The sea looks nice, though._ _I'm glad she offered to take me, not that I need a chaperone. _

She looked out the window once more, in time to see the fading purple of the sky shimmer on the water._ The sea _is_ beautiful. _She smiled.__

_I'll do fine here._ For the first time in days, Celena felt assured. _I can be here and talk to people other than Allen and enjoy myself. I can live a life without Dilandau. _

She could hear the muffled and distant sounds of the city, and the not-so-muffled sounds of the palace courtyard. But as Celena lay down to sleep, her mind was blessedly quiet.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The next several days to go by were remarkably pleasant. Her whole life, Celena had never had anything like a friend: there had been no other children at the Schezar estate when she was a child, there were no other young people there now, and in Zaibach…well, trust had been too painful.

Celena found out soon enough that Allen was right about her and Millerna. While the princess's outgoing, chatty nature was vastly different from her own reserve, the two girls discovered early on a mutual affinity for science.

Celena had been surprised by Millerna, but nothing about the princess was more surprising than her medical studies. Celena had taken her to be friendly and charming and not much else, so learning that there was significant drive and intelligence behind the cheer astounded her.

"You performed _surgery_ on Allen?" she asked, awed.

"Well, yes. I tell you, don't ever do that if you have any other choice, because it was the hardest, most nerve-wracking thing I've ever done. We're all lucky I didn't make a mistake."

Celena felt a strong combination of admiration and guilt. _This 'silly woman' saved my brother's life. I misjudged her._

From then on, Celena opened up to Millerna almost entirely. She talked described her hunger for books, stories, anything written, and her particular fascination for plants.

"It's just amazing how they work. You know why they lean towards the sun? Well, for energy, of course, but the actual mechanics of the leaning? There are tiny parts that collect where more sun is, and they're heavier than other places on the plants, so the plants lean."

On her end, Millerna offered information freely, though not very private information. Celena soon heard that she had two older sisters, one surviving, how long Millerna had been studying medicine, how long she had known Allen, certain stories from the war. She too had things to say about Hitomi.

"She was completely weird. Weird clothes, weird attitude, always swinging that necklace around, fainting or trying to predict the future."

All in all, it was a good beginning to a good friendship. Both girls saw qualities in the other that they could admire, and their differences made conversation interesting.

Celena's confidence grew as fast. Soon she was comfortable with Millerna and in the palace, and was starting to become comfortable in the city. She might have been happy, if she had been comfortable with herself.

The closer she got to Millerna, the more afraid Celena became. _She doesn't know, she hasn't said _any_thing about him or asked me if I'm well…she doesn't know. And when she finds out she'll stop being my friend. With good reason._

Walking through the city, her eyes darting from place to place but her attention focused inward, Celena brooded. Millerna didn't notice, and continued to point out interesting landmarks or shops she liked. She giggled at the sight of a street performer putting on a children's play.

_I don't need her. She makes too much noise, anyway_.

Celena was soon distracted when Millerna dragged her into yet another shop. She didn't seem convinced that the younger girl had enough clothes to last her stay in the capital. Celena obliged her, feeling little interest but just as little inclination to resist. In the late afternoon, they returned to the palace with two new dresses and various accessories for Celena, a new pair of shoes and some medical disinfectant for Millerna. Celena didn't even remember some of the things she had bought.

"Thank you for buying these for me, you really didn't have to…" _you REALLY didn't_.

"Oh, don't worry dear, it's the least I could do. Besides, now we can dress up for dinner tonight!" Celena still couldn't figure out why such things delighted Millerna so. _Ah well. _

_It will be fun to sit with her some more. _

At the thought of spending more time with her exuberant friend, a tentative smile lighted on Celena's face. "I'd like that."

Millerna's jubilant grin dazzled Celena, who found herself laughing at the giddy feeling that rose up in her. Millerna joined in as she grabbed her fashion protég's wrist and dashed off to her chambers.

"Let's use my room! I have a big mirror, and brushes and combs and perfume, oh you _must_ wear this particular fragrance, I think it's perfect for you…"

In her bewilderment, Celena was nonetheless happy.

_Perhaps there's something amusing about this "dressing up" after all, if Millerna likes it so much. _

_Heh. I wonder what I look like all prettied up?_


	8. Seven

Another chapter! Things actually happen in this one. I'm not terribly certain that I want to keep it exactly as it is, but right now the important thing for me is to get it out in the first place.

I apologize to anyone who has actually studied medicine. I know little about this subject, and in this case I'm defending my ignorance with artistic license: it's different on Gaea.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As she looked at her beautifully made-up reflection, Celena began to cry.

_This doesn't look like me. It's a joke. It's a symbol for how they think of me: just a girl. Just a face.  
  
_

She did not tear her fine clothes off, but not for want of frustration. Rather, she was aware that the dress belonged to Millerna—and she wanted to make sure it stayed that way.

Standing in her shift, she began scrubbing at her face in the washbasin. The fluffy white towel came away with streaks of color: pale blue, to match her eyes, pink to give her some color, and black for her lashes. She cupped her hands under the water, and brought up handful after handful to rinse away her mask.

It rinsed away her tears, too.

When she had finished, she stood bent over the basin for a few moments, watching the water drip off her nose and back into the bowl as she clutched the sides. She noticed, for the first time, that her hands were long and sinewy. She stared at her prominent knuckles, her uneven nails.

_They don't want to see who I am._

The sound of a door closing behind her pulled Celena out of her reverie. In the mirror she could see Millerna entering the room, a concerned look on her face.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

Celena stood, embarrassed. She picked up a clean, dry towel, and blotted her face dry to hide her expression. When she lowered the towel again, Millerna gave her a half-amused, half-sympathetic look.

"What?" Celena asked fearfully.

Millerna's expression softened all the way, and she turned her friend gently towards the mirror again. Celena saw that, as hard as she had scrubbed, the makeup was still on her skin, and all her efforts had done was to smear the stuff all over her face.

"Oh," she said, her voice quavering. She felt tears building up behind her throat once more.

"Here," began Millerna, "I've got a special cream that will take it all off. Stay here, I'll go get it. It won't take but a minute."

Celena nodded, and sat near the end of her bed as Millerna flashed her an encouraging smile and whisked off to her own chamber.

When the princess returned, she carried with her a small earthenware jar and two soft, color-stained rags. After closing the door, she crossed the room and sat down on the bed behind Celena, who half-turned to follow her friend.

"Here. Let me look at you, I'll just wipe the rest off, yes? You'll be back to normal in no time."

Celena turned the rest of the way around so that the two were facing each other. Millerna opened the jar, set it on her lap, and dipped in two, rag-covered fingers. Using her left hand to steady Celena's face, she began at the girl's right cheek, wiping gently in a circular pattern.

"It's cold," Celena said, surprised. "Feels kind of nice, actually."

"I always thought so. And it takes off makeup so easily. See?" said Millerna, as she showed Celena the pink- and black-tinted rag. The girl smiled.

As her physician's hands gently smoothed away the mess under Celena's eye, Millerna began to ask questions, her voice unusually subdued.

"Did something happen at dinner to upset you?"

"Yes…" Celena trailed off. Millerna waited for her to formulate her response.

"It's just that…it hurt so much that those noblemen wouldn't listen to me." Celena looked Millerna sadly in the eye. "It's as if they didn't even want to know that I can read."

"Ah." The princess's voice had a knowing tone to it. She sighed. "You know, I forget what it's like to realize it for the first time."

"Realize what?"

"That most men are perfectly happy to believe that women are nothing more than dolls. That most men will do a lot to make sure women _can't_ be anything more than dolls."

Celena was thoughtful. "They tried to stop you studying medicine, didn't they."

"Dozens of times."

"How do you stand it?"

Millerna sighed again, and a pensive frown formed on her brow. Wiping away at Celena's left cheek now, she began,

"Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I plot out horrendously complicated and ineffective ways to take over the kingdom and make it a queendom. Mostly, though, I just keep doing what I feel is right. Maybe if I do it enough, people will start to change."

Millerna's half-hopeful, half-resigned tone hurt Celena, hurt her for making her feel so ineffectual against an overwhelming tide. She lowered her eyes, trying to respect the enormity of the situation with their aversion. The silence in which the two young women rested was another kind of communion, a place to allow their unspeakable emotions room to be un-said.

After a few moments, as Millerna finished wiping Celena's left eyelid, Celena chuckled to herself. When she looked up into her friend's face, she saw the princess giving her a quizzical expression.

"That explains the trousers, then." Celena imparted, amused at her own previous confusion over her friend's wardrobe.

Millerna looked surprised, and then threw her head back and laughed uproariously. "Yes! It certainly does!"

Celena had started laughing at Millerna's shocked expression, and the two girls dissolved into helpless giggles. Luckily Celena's face was clean by this time, and Millerna, still laughing, returned the lid to her jar and put the cloths carefully aside.

Then she pounced on Celena, who let out an undignified squawk as the princess tickled her abdomen.

"This is what you get for getting makeup on my towels! Ha!"

Celena's laughter helplessly swelled to fill the room. She flailed, trying to deflect Millerna's deft fingers, but to no avail. Twisting to her side, Celena tried to dart under the princess's arms to tickle her, but only ended up lying down under the onslaught. Millerna clearly had the upper hand, her left knee on the mattress, her right foot rooted to the floor. She continued to torture Celena, despite the girl's breathless pleas to the contrary.

"No—ha ha—I really mean—hee—it," she tried to get out. "Heh—please—yee hee—stop!"

Millerna leaned over Celena's face, mocking, "Not until you proclaim your loyalty to Queen Millerna!"

Celena stopped laughing.

"STOP TOUCHING ME!"

Her demand was punctuated by her right fist, which twisted up with lightening speed from the mattress and planted itself firmly in Millerna's eye. The princess staggered off the bed, left hand held to her eye, right hand held to the windowsill for support.

Breathing hard, Celena stared at her friend in shock. Millerna turned to look at her, and as their eyes met, the hurt in Millerna's expression drove a spike of guilt deep into Celena's heart.

The girl dashed to her feet, and was out the door in a heartbeat.

She sped through the palace halls without seeing their stone walls or painted decorations. Tears blurred her vision, and an internal monologue hounded her at every step.

_That was so awful of me! She hates me now, I know it…and even if she doesn't, I hate myself. She's the only friend I've ever had, and I hurt her…DAMMIT WHY?! I'm such a mess, such a mess of a person, I shouldn't be allowed to interact with people…  
  
_

_When did I get so arrogant? Was it just having a friend that made me think I was queen of Gaea? I don't understand this!  
  
_

She was in the courtyard now. She stomped the most direct route to the gate, but pulled up short when she saw the torch in the bracket by the service entrance. The flames captured her attention without effort, and drew her in without mercy. She was standing directly before it before she knew she had changed direction.

_Amazing how something unalive can seem so vital._ She freed the torch from the wall and turned around, starting back towards the stables. As she approached the building, she had completely forgotten about Millerna, had, in fact, completely forgotten about anything besides the fire.

The stable door stood slightly ajar, and Celena pushed through it to the dark interior. The torchlight cast deep, flickering shadows, and woke some of the horses. Many people passed through with torches, though, so the animals weren't alarmed.

She stopped at the first large pile of straw and tossed the flaming spar onto it.

The flames flared up immediately, and Celena's heart sang. Each straw incinerated was a poem, the wall of heat that singed her skin was love, the crackle and roar were hymns, and the garish light was the light of benediction. The girl shivered and started breathing harder as the fire in her body surged up to meet the fire in the stable. Her breath caught when the flames reached a wall, and she silently urged them forward.

**##Burn!##  
  
**

She heard a shout, and before she could turn around to see who it was, she was seized so brusquely that she nearly fell over. She struggled to see her captor, and was surprised to be looking up into Allen's angry face. He glared out at the fire and at those trying to smother it, yelling directions at those who would listen. As she was dragged inside, Celena saw people start to form a bucket chain, and others to free the horses while yet others brought sand.

Her bubble broke, and all the shouting and terrified animal shrieks crashed down on her.

_Oh….gods. I set the stables on fire._

"AAAUUUUUGH!" She shrieked and struggled to free herself from her brother's grasp as he hustled her through the halls. "WHY? Why am I here? Why do you keep me? Why can't I be normal?! WHY DOES HE RUIN EVERYTHING I TOUCH??! Let me GO, don't touch me, I'm VILE!! DON'T LOOK AT ME!!"

"CELENA! Calm _down_!" Allen held her close, preventing her from lashing out. As he ushered her towards her room, her struggles to break free abruptly ceased, and her frustrated ranting changed into wordless sobs.

Her brother sat her down on her bed, and stroked her back while she continued weeping into his chest.

"Shh, shhh. Don't worry, Celena, we'll fix this."

The girl hiccupped and wound her hands tighter into Allen's shirt.

"Don't—see—how."

"Shh. I've called Millerna, I think she can help."

At the mention of the princess's name, Celena's crying redoubled. Allen wished he hadn't said anything, and continued stroking and rocking his sister, his baby sister.

After a few minutes, the door opened quietly. Millerna peeked in, asking softly,

"Celena?"

While her sobbing had diminished, the girl in question was still clinging to Allen as her lifeline, and tried to hide herself from the princess in her brother's arms. Millerna's concerned expression gained sympathy as she entered the room and shut the door behind her. As she approached the siblings, it became apparent that a reddish swelling surrounded her left eye.

"Celena, I'm not mad. I know about…your problem, Allen told me before you came.

"Doesn't matter," Celena's muffled, mucus-clogged voice answered, "You were trying to comfort me and I _hit_ you."

"I still want to be your friend, Celena."

Celena sniffed, and turned her face to Millerna. "I'm so sorry," she squeaked.

"Shh, it's okay, it's okay," her friend soothed, kneeling down to hug the girl. Celena returned the embrace as strongly as she received it, and came away looking a bit calmer, if not happier.

"Now, Celena, you need to rest," Allen began. "We still don't know how to heal you, dammit, but…" He trailed off. Obviously he didn't want to continue.

Millerna looked at Allen, sighed, and turned to Celena, finishing the unpleasant task that the elder Schezar had left her.

"For now, we think sedation will at least keep you from hurting yourself."

Under normal circumstances, Celena would have been hurt by the idea. Now, however, overcome by guilt as she was, all she could think was that it was a reasonable idea.

"And burning down buildings," she added.

Allen winced and looked away, and Millerna nodded guiltily. "I'm sorry, Celena, we just need time to think…"

The girl nodded. "I understand. How are you going to do it?"

Relieved of the burden of breaking the news, Allen spoke first. "There's a special sleeping drug that's fairly common in medicine. Millerna knows how to use it correctly, so it will be safe." As he spoke, Allen started positioning Celena so that she was lying on her bed.

As he was fluffing the pillow under his sister's head, Millerna gave Allen a somewhat chastising look. Turning to Celena, she said bluntly,

"We have to inject you with it."

It was the look on Millerna's face, more than her words, that frightened Celena.

"Inject?"

Millerna nodded. "With a needle. It will hurt a little, but only once."

Celena sat up, and Allen tried to soothe her back into a reclining position. "Needle? What kind of needle can put stuff in me?"

Millerna had turned to her small black bag—that Celena hadn't noticed before that moment—and pulled out a small glass jar full of clear liquid, and a frightening apparatus that put Celena in mind of a giant, metallic mosquito.

"That?!" Her voice was shrill. "That's huge!"

"I'm not going to put the entire thing into you. Just a little bit," the self-studied physician replied. "I've done it on myself and on others before, it's not a very complicated procedure." As she was speaking, Millerna set the needle down and started swabbing at Celena's wrist, right over the blue veins, with a strange, yellow-black liquid.

"This is to keep it clean, so there's no infection." She swabbed the same stuff on the needle itself, and on the lid of the jar. As she did so, Celena realized that it was not a hard, metal lid, but rather seemed to be made of an elastic substance of some kind.

Cleaning completed, Millerna turned the jar upside-down with one hand and fitted her fingers into the many loops and grips of the syringe. Closing her hand, she inserted the tip of the needle into the jar. As her hand opened, the hollow chamber of the syringe filled with the clear liquid. When there was about an inch's worth of liquid inside, she stopped, and removed the needle.

"There. See? It's not that much."

Celena wasn't sure if she was comforted. She tried to relax, inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, and exhaling. She decided to give in to Allen's gentle pressure, and lay back against the welcoming pillows. Staring at the canopy of her bed, she tried to concentrate on her breathing.

She felt Millerna grasp her arm just below the elbow, and then the pressure of the needle as it entered her arm, and—

Celena exploded with fear. Fear came from all sides, from inside, from the walls and bed and floor. Fear came from Allen's worried face, and Millerna's sad one, both fading fast from view. Fear came from the colors that swirled once her vision darkened.

It all originated from the needle. She would have never agreed to this if she had known that needles were fear. If she had known that her panicked scream would die as she slipped into unconsciousness.

If she had remembered.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was going to hurt. He could tell by the way they were looking at him.

The worst part was not the pain. He knew that the needle would dull anything else they would do to him.

The worst part was the utter and inescapable lack of control. Strapped to that table, Dilandau could not move, or leave, or even protect himself. The Sorcerers could do anything they wanted to him, and he knew this, and it terrified him. He was beyond caring about anything other than getting away.

_Can't move, wanna leave, oh god I wish I could get up and run out that door and they wouldn't be able to do this to me and scared, scared, scared, so scared, they're going to do _that_, it's going to hurt and I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE!!!! Let me GO, please, someone, anyone, let me go! Gatti, Chesta, Viole, Dallet, someone, ANYONE, PLEASE!!! HELP ME!!  
  
_

His body convulsed in fear, his heart raced because his body could not. Dilandau, destroyer of cities and killer of innocents, unabashedly screamed his terror to anyone that would listen.

Ultimately, the human body has the last word on any matter that involves it. Pain and fear of pain can reduce anyone, no matter how strong, to something terrified and completely desperate.

So, yes, Dilandau screamed, and even wept as the Sorcerer approached with the needle. He screamed for help, forgetting in his abject terror that the only ones who would help him were dead.

There was no one.

He was alone.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	9. Eight

New chapter, in record time! Woo!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_I am a soldier. Death is my business. I bring death to the enemy, the stupid, the weak, the unlucky. I am a driving fire cleansing the land of weakness._

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A voice, incredulous with horror and disbelief:

_Chesta!_

Escaflowne ripped into an Alseidies.

_Dallet!_

Liquid metal spurted from the gash near the cockpit in another melef.

_Miguel!_

Dilandau and Celena could see the boy's face as he was dragged backwards by the enemy, to be captured. It was the last time Dilandau saw him alive.

_Gatti!_

Celena could feel the sweat rolling down Dilandau's face in rivers. She could feel his terror at the berserk Escaflowne before him, and she wept at the weight of it.

_Viole!_

Machine destroyed machine, and each time, a boy died.

She saw the Dragonslayers die, over and over again.

_Horrible…_

Her world was crumbling around her. She was holding on by a thread, nearly overtaken by terror, consumed by the swiftly opening void rushing fast as high-atmosphere wind and howling like all her boys had. Every time she blinked, she saw their last moments on the backs of her eyelids.

Outside. There, the clouds covered everything. The sun could not penetrate their mist. She could feel herself being pulled downward into the clouds, feel herself swallowed up in the cold, darkening fall.

At the bottom, there was only Dilandau.

_They were his strength…he didn't see them as people, exactly…but they were still so important to him…_

She held the rose to her face, savoring the smell the way she had not been able to savor the last moments of her boys' company. The black leather of her glove creaked as she gave the stem one last ineffectual squeeze and then, seemingly carelessly, tossed the rose into the air. It surprised her how easily it fell, how silently, gone to the cold dark loneliness without a fuss.

"In memory of you incompetent fools," she said.

As the rose became a speck and disappeared from sight, she lost everything her boys had given her. The void finally overtook her.

It took her easily. She didn't so much as whimper.

She sank to her knees as everything fell apart.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She almost remembered Jajuka as Celena. It was hard to tell whether or not her small child's arms reaching up to the kind beastman belonged to a boy or girl. She felt tired, and hungry, and scared, but herself.

"It's alright, I'm here, Dilandau. It's all right, it's going to be fine."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She was very close to him. She could see the lines of his puny body through the steam, crouched and facing away.

_Easy pickings_.

She raised her sword and started to lunge.

"VAN, LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!!!"

It was the Mystic Moon bitch, of course. Startled, Van turned, at _just_ the wrong moment. His sword came up, and before she could finish the brat, a searing line flashed across her right cheek.

_My face?! He cut my FACE!!_ A shaking hand reached up to assess the damage. Oh, it felt deep. It was going to scar. _My beautiful face!_

Her perfection…gone. _How could this happen?! _She could feel herself teetering on the peak, threatening to fall from the heights where she belonged. She was above all others. Her power was perfect, supreme over life and death. Her body was perfect, strong and beautiful. The Dragon had destroyed one of her perfections without a thought.

Curled up and shaking on the floor, she made a vow:

_Van. I will kill you._

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Near midmorning, Celena gained enough strength to wake up and drag herself out of her horrors. She clawed her way out of the drugged sleep, gasping and opening teary eyes to a concerned Allen. He leaned forward, resting a hand on her shoulder, and moved closer to his sister.

"Don't touch me," she whispered. "Please." The knight's hand fell back, and Celena shuddered deeper into the bed. The shaking wouldn't stop, it seemed, and she curled up small and defensive. Finally conscious enough to express her devastation, the girl wept, long, loud sobs shaking her seemingly broken frame. Allen murmured soothing nonsense words, and even as she sobbed his sister went about assuring herself of her freedom. Eyes screwed shut, face turned to the briny pillow, she hugged herself and rubbed her limbs to make sure that she existed, that she could touch and feel and _move_.

After a few minutes, her sobbing subsided, and the plain and unthreatening physicality of the room gave her comfort. All comfort vanished when Celena remembered how she had gotten there: the blow, the fire, and the needle.

That _damned_ needle.

Slowly, Celena sat up. She rubbed at a puffy eye, swiped a sleeve across a runny nose as she sniffed. Her hair was going in all directions, and she felt nauseated. More significant to her appearance, though, was that she now had a desperate determined light in her eyes. She looked like she had survived a flood.

She looked directly at Allen.

"I don't think sedation was a good idea."

"Celena, I'm so sorry, we had no idea—"

"It's alright. Don't worry about it." Her voice had an unnerving dead quality to it, like she was beyond caring about such things.

"I have to go." She stood up and started walking towards the door.

"Go? Where?"

"…The beach." As she opened the door, she was surprised to meet Millerna, just reaching for the doorknob from the other side. The older girl burst into tears when she got a good look at Celena.

"I'm so sorry! This is all my fault, I didn't know you'd have dreams, you looked so frightened but we couldn't wake you!" She stepped forward to hug Celena, but the younger girl was too jumpy to be caught in the princess's embrace. Sidestepping quickly, she started down the hallway, reassuring Millerna as she backed away.

"It wasn't your fault. Don't worry about it. I have to go now," she repeated. She got further and further away, but now Allen had made it out the door and was nearly on a level with her.

Celena ignored his presence by her side, and kept walking.

"Celena, you can't go alone! It's too dangerous!" He laid a hand on her arm, a firm gesture that said he didn't want to hear an argument.

"Please don't touch me." Celena gently pulled her arm away, and looked down at the floor in front of her feet. "I'm sorry, Allen, it's not something I can deal with right now."

"I never wanted to hurt you, Celena!" Allen looked heartbroken. "But I really don't think I can let you be alone right now."

Celena kept walking, at a steady pace, to the palace entrance. As they turned the last corner, a cool sea breeze swept over the pair and helped lift Celena's nausea.

She stopped in the sunshine, letting her eyes adjust.

"Alright. We'll go to the beach."

##All of us.##

Allen sighed with relief.

The brightness of the sunlight seemed to bleach away the madness of the night before.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As quietly as possible, Celena dressed as sturdily as her tourist wardrobe allowed. Perhaps it was her mental stillness that kept her body from making noise: for the whole day, even her more urgent thoughts had been subsumed by the millpond, shocked calm of her mind. Now that it was night, she felt that the world was finally in tune with her interior.

Pulling the cloak around her shoulders, she gave her sleeping brother a sad, guilty look. She did not feel noble in taking advantage of his exhausted sleep. The fact that he had not slept the night before to watch over her was no help.

_I love you, brother. But I must go._

Skirting the chair Allen was slumped in, she made it to the door, and opened it, again silently. Slowly, slowly she opened it onto the darkened hallway.

She was almost surprised that there was no one there. Closing the door softly behind her, she made her way swiftly through the halls of the palace.

_First, to the kitchen for food and supplies. _

_Then, to Fanelia._

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	10. Nine

This is the scene that the entire story is based on, folks. The first version was written before any of the rest of the story. Due to having to take the rest of the story into account, and with my own changing ideas over the years (;;), this is the third or so version of that same idea.

I can only hope that it lives up to the version in my head, and to the ideas I'm trying to get across.

WARNING: This chapter contains self-injury. Don't read if that bothers or triggers you.

-----------------------------------------------------------

"You aren't spouting cocky threats. What's wrong, Dilandau?" Van asked bitterly as he saw the slim, blonde figure enter his private rooms holding a long knife.

Celena shook her head. Her jaw was clenched and her hands shook, and her expression was desperate. "Not him, but if we don't hurry it will be. He's eating me from the inside."

She raised her knife and took a lurching step towards the young king of Fanelia, and Van ducked and blocked before he realized that she was offering him the handle of the weapon. Her voice shook with effort. "Take it."

Van did so, frightened of what would happen if Dilandau awoke with a blade in his hands. He still had no idea what Celena was thinking, and was seriously starting to think she was mad beyond saving.

"What do you intend with this?" Van asked. He was careful to keep more than an arm's length of distance between himself and the girl, though he wished he didn't feel the need to. Inside Celena's head did not look like a very pleasant place to be. Comfort was what the girl needed most.

##KILL HIM!! I WILL KILL HIM! TAKE THE KNIFE AND CUT OFF HIS NOSE AS HE BREATHES, HIS LIPS WHILE HE SCREAMS, HIS EARS WHILE I LAUGH!! CARVE INTO HIS CHEEKS AND HIS THROAT, REMOVE HIS SCALP, LEAVE HIM AS RUINED AS HE LEFT ME!##

"The cut," she ground out. "It destroyed him last time, you destroyed him last time."

##I WAS PERFECT! PERFECT FIGHTER, PERFECT BODY, PERFECT FACE! YOU RUINED IT ALL, YOU WEAKLING SON OF A FUCKING WHORE!!! YOU DO IT AGAIN AND I WILL KILL YOU SLOWLY!##

"He is _screaming _at the possibility of it happening again. Please, help me. Destroy him again."

##DESTROY ME?!?! YOU FUCKING BITCH, YOU WILL NEVER DESTROY ME AS LONG AS YOU LIVE! I WILL WIN AND YOUR FUCKING LIES OF KINDNESS WILL BE LOST TO EVERYONE'S MEMORY!##

Van's eyes widened. "You want me to cut your face?"

"Yes! Please!" Celena nearly screamed out. "I can't hold him forever! Do it now!"

I WILL WIN AND YOUR FUCKING LIES OF KINDNESS WILL BE LOST TO EVERYONE'S MEMORY. I WILL KILL EVERYONE DEAR TO YOU, I WILL BURN THEM ALL I WILL BURN ALL THE CITIES I WILL FUCKING ERASE FANELIA AND ASTURIA AND ZAIBACH FROM THE FUCKING MAP!

Van swallowed and gripped the knife firmly. He held Celena's chin in his right hand, his big blunt fingers pressing into her pale, pale skin. Her eyes were wild and pleading and her nostrils flared with her effort. She looked as though she were about to give birth to something from her pores, from her eyes and ears and hair. Something explosive that would leave her a pool of blood and scorch the world for miles.

He poised the blade just below her cheekbone, took a deep breath, and—

Prick. One single drop of blood ran down Celena's otherwise unmarred cheek. Only one.

_Great gods, I can't do it_. Van realized. Fear crept onto his face as he realized that he couldn't defeat Dilandau in Celena's body. Looking into her eyes, he saw that she saw his fear too, and knew what it meant.

And Dilandau knew what it meant.

A spark in Celena's eyes warned him. Pushing her fiercely away from himself, Van backed off.

Dilandau-as-Celena lunged for Van but threw herself to the side at the last instant, catching her shoulder on the edge of Van's desk. As her body lurched to the floor, Van practically threw a chair between himself and his adversary. She was on her feet again with alarming speed. Trying to back out the door, Van stumbled on the edge of a rug as the blonde used the chair as a stepping-stone to catapult herself towards the frantic king. She grabbed his throat as she landed on his chest, knocking the air out of him while making it impossible to breathe in more. A horrible manic grin occupied Van's spotted vision, and shrill noises escaped Celena's lips as Dilandau happily strangled him.

It was the knife that saved Van. He had never let it go. He brought up the pommel with all the strength he could muster, striking Celena on the top of her head.

Her hands loosened as she crumpled over him, and Van clawed his throat free to take in gasps of air.

Rolling the girl off of him, he sat up, massaging his throat. Her strength surprised him. He wondered if maybe some of her Zaibach training had stayed with her, somehow.

Looking at the unconscious Celena, he frowned. Did her brother even know where she was? Van knew the situation was delicate. He just didn't know what course was best.

He decided to isolate her, make her as comfortable as she could be in the situation, and then figure out what to do. Find Allen, that's what. She was his sister, after all. Van had enough to deal with.

Shouldering her dead weight, Van trudged out of the room and towards the nearest empty guest room. At this hour, there was no one else about. He laid Celena down on the bed, taking the time to move a pillow under her head and pull a blanket over her.

The only window was a narrow slit; the palace had been reworked into a fortress.

Out in the hall, Van locked the door. Putting the key in his shirt pocket, he strode towards the room of his messenger. Surely Allen already knew that Celena was missing; Van hoped the man wouldn't have gone off in a frantic search without telling anyone. The Caeli Knight was the only hope Van had in this situation.

_--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

The world was dark, and blurry. Blinking strongly to clear her vision, Celena stared at the ceiling.

From the half-light in the room, it must have been close to sunrise.

She recognized the plaster molding. This was Fanelian ceiling.

___Shit_.

Rolling to her side, she tried to take stock of the situation. It looked like a guest room: plain wardrobe, nondescript bed, washstand, chair. There was even a small mirror fixed to the wall over the basin.

As she sat up, she reeled. The top of her head pounded so much she almost fell back into the bed. Wincing, she clutched at her aching cranium, waiting for the pain to subside.

After a few, far too long moments, she at least got used to the idea. Gritting her teeth, she stood up.

The door was locked.

___Shit shit! Of course he locked it. Anyone would. He's probably getting Allen_.

___I was so close_.

_Close to victory, close to catastrophic failure. Close to killing Van._

Using the wall for support, she made her way to the washstand. The pitcher was empty, unfortunately. She could have used some water. She stared at the chipped porcelain, remembering the events in the study.

_It wasn't like the last time. Why was I stronger, this time? _

##You think I know, bitch? It's more the pity you were. If you had been nice and quiet like last time, I would have ended that piece of filth.##

Celena gasped. Her other half was still there.

##Yeah, you forgot? Not like you, Miss Know-it-all. Ha! Maybe I'll win sooner than I thought, if you're losing it.##

She sat down on the end of the bed._Gods_…

For a few moments, there was only throbbing in her head. Then, Dilandau began to speak again.

##I don't see why you persist in this notion of defeating me. I was always stronger. I always will be stronger. This is just a setback. It's fucking annoying having to live in a weak girl's body, but maybe I can use that. Men will do a lot for a pretty face.##

As he went on, Celena had an inkling. She remembered her original purpose in coming to see Van, and tried to dodge full-on realization. Remembering it peripherally was the only hope she had of avoiding calling Dilandau's attention to it. Moving her hands to her sash, she tried to believe that she was only adjusting it for comfort.

___Stupid sash. So tight. I will take it off, and my shoes, and try to go back to sleep_.

##Thank you for the riveting narration, girly. Disdain became a chuckle. Heh. When I'm in control you can narrate me all you want. In a mental falsetto, Dilandau teased, 'And then the mighty Dilandau stabbed Van in the chest, spurts of blood flowing up around his sword. "AAAAH!" screamed the wimp.'##

Celena gritted her teeth and tried to ignore him.

___So tired, blood is bad, need sleep_…

Working the knife from the sash, she stared fixedly at her shoes. Once the knife was free, she set it on the mattress next to her and leaned over to get her shoes. ___Gods, why do these things have so many buttons?!_

As she unfastened her shoes, she scooted to the left, closer to the washstand.

_Buttons, buttons, shoes, blood, clothes, tired, sleep… _

When she sat up again, she was facing the washstand, and the mirror, directly. The room was dim, but she—and Dilandau—could still see her reflection well enough. Maybe it was the dimness that made her appear sick and ghostly.

##You look awful. When I was in command, I always looked marvelous.##

_Always? _

Gripping the knife, looking her reflection full in the face, Celena steeled herself and gave up pretense. Maybe she would succeed where Van failed.

___I remember something different_.

Her arm wavered only slightly as she pushed the point of the small knife into her skin. She began at the small, already-scabbing prick that Van had made earlier, and pulled downward in a gracefully bleeding arc.

For a moment, the entire world held its breath, watching the skin part around the blade and the blood come to fill the gap. The pain of it was sharp, and concentrated, and concrete. It was blessedly concrete, distracting her from all her intangible problems. She felt as though she were writing her destiny on her cheek, changing her badcircumstances with a three-inch sting. Or perhaps the cut was a barrier between her and the madness that had become her life. That little bit of manageable pain seemed to take her away, to bring her to an intimate place where only she and it existed.

Only in blood was her life her own. Only written in blood.

And then the noise came back: her own panicked breathing, the maddeningthrob of her head, and Dilandau's voice.

##AUUUUGHGH!!!!! You think you've—defeated me—you wanted to—kill me. You—are a betrayer—you are CRAZY—it's your face too, you know.##

It was not what she had expected. Anger and threats, yes. But even though she knew those emotions from her memory-dreams, Dilandau's feelings of hurt and resignation were confusing. She felt almost guilty.

Disoriented, Celena sat looking at her reflection for a long moment. Blood ran darkly down her pale jaw and neck, dripping off her chin and soaking into her collar. She couldn't bring herself to care about either. She marveled at the fact that she had done that to herself.

___Only I could do this_, she realized. _I was the one who had to do this._

She marveled at the blood itself.

___This is always inside us, but people don't usually see it. This is real, this is what we're made of, but people are always horrified by it. It's not supposed to get out. _

##My face…my face…my face…my face…## 

___Can it be that reigning in the monster sustains us? _

##My face…my face…kill you…my face…##

_No. Dilandau isn't like blood that way. Keeping him hidden just makes us weaker._

##everything…falling apart…always leaving me…my beauty…my strength…##

___Why? Why is that so? You'd think that subduing the monster would be the best thing to do…_

##always ALONE! don't leave me don't don't don't, stop##

_He doesn't seem so monstrous now. He didn't feel so alien in that dream… _

##stop hurting me##

___I feel you._

##please stop##

She shrank, borne downward by Dilandau's anguish.

___I feel what you feel._

##stop stop stop stop stop stop##

"STOP HURTING ME!"

As she cried out, the force of it constricted her chest and throat, wringing tears from her tired eyes. The words had been hers, and they had been Dilandau's. She had felt Dilandau's pain and frustration as if they were her own.

Because they were.

___The monstrosity is not Dilandau, you are not, WE are not a monster…it is our separation, our alienation from ourself ourselves that is monstrous…it is the separation that is wrong._

##I told you you could never win.##

___Neither of us could win, alone. _

Celena reached her hand up and cradled her wound. As clearly as she felt the cut, she could now feel the edges of her internal wall. The more she examined it, as she approached the boundary, she could feel Dilandau responding to her on the other side.

___##Burn!##_

She felt all around it, covering every part of its surface. The masonry was often just a mass of a single emotion. It was made of sadness, confusion, but most often, fear. Other times, she could recognize specific ideas: I can't let Dilandau get Van. I don't want to be a killer. I don't want to make Allen sad.

___I was helping to keep us separated_, she realized_. __And those bastards intended for their creation to be self-sustaining._

Those ideas, her ideas, were what she had used to patch the holes in the wall made by Dilandau's first resurgence.

_If I put them there, I can take them down. That's why it had to be me with the knife! _

There were cracks in the patches. It was how the dreams and memories had gotten through, and how Dilandau's voice could reach her. She could hear him now, murmuring painfully.

She pulled at an opening, making it bigger.

Now more flowed through the crevice, and this time it wasn't just a voice, or a memory. It was her own estranged anger that flowed forth. She had not felt anger as Celena since she was a child.

___Those heartless bastard SHITS! FUCKING SCUM! THEY BROKE ME!   
_And she realized that they had. The barrier between her and Dilandau was not just a wall; it was also a deep chasm, a breech in her very being.

But her anger. Her anger was a bridge.

_All for what? To make a better soldier?! _

Giving an inarticulate cry of rage and frustration, Celena grabbed the washbasin off the stand and flung it against the wall, close to the mirror. It shattered with a substantial crash, showering ceramic and plaster everywhere.

_I am not a docile vessel for your will anymore! BURN!!! _

She blasted the wall with her fury. She felt the barrier ignite, her alienation perfect fuel for her rage.

_I HATE YOU!! I HATE EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR! _

It burned. Soon the bricks and stones were crumbling to glowing charcoal. And, the more the wall burned, the more Celena experienced her anger, the wider her bridge became. It began to encompass other lost emotions, other parts of herself that the Sorcerers had ripped out of her to make Dilandau: jealousy, pride, hatred. She felt pain and grief that, save for in dreams, only Dilandau had felt.

_The Sorcerers should have done those tortures to themselves! They should have DIED!_

_Chesta, Miguel, Dallet, Viole, Gatti, Guimel!_

_Zaibach killed you, not Van._

_Zaibach destroyed you, and Fanelia, and so much else!_

Too soon, anger was overcome by pain, and sobs choked her screams. Celena despaired, feeling abandoned in a devastated landscape charred barren by an emotion that, now, was dying in its efforts to burn the unburnable.

The wall was broken. Pieces of it still remained, but the majority of the barrier was gone. Burned to the ground.

The girl put a shaking hand up to her bloody face again, and curled into herself on the bed.

___Kidnapped, violated, abused, forced into combat. Made to destroy human beings. They killed my boys, made them abandon me. I was all alone. Then I almost killed Van, twice. I hurt Millerna and Allen. I never meant to._

___I am violated._

___It hurts, oh it hurts._

She remained like that while the room brightened, heralding dawn.

_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_


	11. Interlude: Destiny Alteration

Meh, I think the descriptions in this chapter could be a lot smoother.

WARNINGS: This chapter contains physical and psychological child abuse, metaphorical rape, torture, detailed threats, sociopathic doctors, and bad jokes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sides of the Same Coin  
Interlude: Destiny Alteration

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The technician—his promotion had been too recent for him to call himself "Sorcerer"—sat ready at his station, checking and re-checking the dials on his console. All the readouts were within the acceptable margins, all the valves were in their correct positions, all the tubing and cords were firmly attached and free of kinks. Everything was in place. He had gone over every inch of the equipment so many times that it would have to be, unless super-intelligent rats had sabotaged it in the past minute. Which, he mused, was a slim possibility. The lab rodents were kept in another wing of the building.

The subject was late. The technician had been told that the procedure would begin half an hour ago, and no one had even come to tell him the reason for the delay or how soon it would be over. He doubted that the procedure would be cancelled. This particular program had been in the works for over three years, and the Emperor leaned ever more heavily on his Sorcerous staff to produce fast results. At most, there would be a short postponement while whatever problems that had interfered with tonight's session were rectified. Even if the current subject was lost, there were plenty more candidates.

Although, the man reflected, this particular subject was above and beyond the best they had seen. Raised in privilege, the girl was physically very healthy and resilient. Raised to be a lady, she was sweet and naïve, if a bit troublesome at times. The technician had often wondered where she had come from. The children of Zaibach were too often weak and malnourished. Either that, or the pressures of life forced them to become adults, effectively robbing their psyches of their childhood malleability.

Maybe this terrible experiment wouldn't be such a moral failure, he hoped. Maybe the results would help secure a better future for the people of Zaibach. Surely if many children were no longer hungry, the sacrifice of one girl would be a small thing.

Looking at the door for the fifteenth time, the technician sighed. He didn't even have the superior, consumed expression of the lead Sorcerer to keep him company. The head of the project had left the room after the first five minutes, gone to see for himself what was keeping the girl. The technician pitied whoever it was.

He turned his gaze to the central feature of the room: the slab. It was a favorite of the Sorcerers. For this particular occasion, the stainless steel table had been rotated on its axis into a nearly vertical standing position, and another flat piece of metal had been attached perpendicularly across the bottom of the slab about a foot and a half from the end. Strapped to the cold hard surface as always, the subject now would be standing on her own but within easy reach of the adult Sorcerers. The slab faced the empty end of the room, which waited like any good theater to be filled. The girl was to have the front-row seat.

In contrast to the stark empty space in front of the slab—bare metal walls interrupted only by rivets—the space behind the slab and to its sides contained the most impressive array of equipment the technician had yet to see. Immediately surrounding the slab was a system of fine tubes nearly arboreal in complexity and number, which ended in tiny clear cups that, like flowers, contained a single, needle-pointed stamen in the center. Flowing backwards from the slab, the tubes were roped together in increasingly larger bundles, reaching back to their source like veins. Six waist-high cylinders ranged across the back of the room to the technician's left. The tubes sprung forth from the tops of the cylinders, whose iron-encased glassy surface allowed one to monitor the interior liquid. Each contained the same thing: a bubbling chalky whiteness.

From behind the cylinders, electrical cords fed into their bases. These in turn were heaped in bundles and connected to several sockets in the wall. There were dials on the cylinders, but the technician had only checked them to make sure they matched the dials on his console, which was connected to the cylinders by yet more cords. The entire apparatus took up the better part of fifty square yards, and this was the streamlined version. And it was not even all the equipment needed for this procedure.

Destiny alteration required one more essential tool: the serum. Sitting on a small rolling table, just five feet from the slab, was disinfectant, sanitary gloves and a deceptively simple syringe. In an incubator near the door was the serum itself, kept steadily at human body temperature in a small jar. The thermometer above the door and the independent thermometer inside agreed, upon the fifth inspection.

Yes. Everything was ready.

As he was making for his seat for the seventh time that hour, the door opened suddenly, surprising the technician. First strode through the lead Sorcerer, a calm mask belying his furious eyes. He was a gaunt, tall man, with graying hair and permanently stony expression. His long black robes ghosted over the floor as he went immediately to the slab and checked all the restraints. The technician privately hoped that, when he was promoted to full robes, he would look less like a giant bat than his superior.

Two guards struggled through the doorway, carrying a flailing girl of seven between them. They forced her against the slab and held her limbs in place as the Sorcerer buckled the leather straps closed. As soon as the last lock clicked shut and the guards left the room, the girl quit struggling and just hung in her bonds, sobbing quietly with her chin against her chest.

The Sorcerer nodded to the technician, who flicked several switches in succession. The dials of two of the six cylinders lit up, and the liquid within flowed outward through the tubes, pushed onward by a rattling hum and the strangely life-like exhalations of the pumping mechanism. The liquid made the tubes jump to life, as if they too were struggling to escape.

The Sorcerer nodded again and the swarm of flower-ended filaments pushed forward and down, moving to encircle the subject. Their attention frightened her. She began to struggle again, vainly trying to put distance between herself and the curious, undead tentacles.

"Don't be afraid. They won't bite." The Sorcerer nodded again. As the technician smoothly turned a knob, the tubes advanced, resting their smooth, hard cups on the subject's skin: at her temples, her neck, up and down the inside of her arms, her ankles, her stomach. As each flower landed, it gave the girl an uncomfortable sucking kiss, keeping itself firmly in place. Some tubes even insinuated themselves under her loose, tattered clothing, resting their heads far too close to her more vulnerable bones and organs. Now she was trembling on the slab, eyes squeezed shut.

She could see the unfeeling heads burrowing into her, feel them burrow into her, at the same time as the suction made her afraid of being pulled in every direction until her skin ripped off. Every muscle was contracted.

The initiation of the procedure was almost complete. The lead Sorcerer, after inspecting the tubing and cups, turned his back on the girl. He pulled the gloves off the table and onto his hands, and took a disinfectant pad from its immaculate container. Turning back to the trembling subject, he rubbed the pad on inner crook of her left elbow. She flinched at the touch.

Leaving her side, the Sorcerer strode to the incubator and opened the sealed door. Shutting it behind him again, he took the jar of serum in one hand, inverted it, and pierced the membrane with the needle in his other hand. As he pulled the plunger, a strange liquid filled the syringe. At first it seemed colorless, but as there was more and more of it, it became a deeper reddish color. As the Sorcerer set the syringe on the table and the jar back in the incubator, the technician could swear that he saw the color in both containers pulse at the same moment.

At some point the technician hadn't noticed, the girl had opened her eyes, and was staring fearfully at the Sorcerer. As he strode towards her with the prepared syringe, her expression became apprehensive. She had never seen such an apparatus before, but it didn't look pleasant.

The technician watched as the Sorcerer grasped the girl's arm in his left hand, and pressed his thumb down to find a vein. He smoothly pierced her flesh with the needle, ignoring the girl's whimpering and holding her tense arm steady. Her distress noises increased as the liquid was injected into her body.

Removing the syringe from her arm, the Sorcerer looked to the technician. "Lights," he commanded. The man behind the controls nodded, and dimmed the harsh glare of the room to a low, almost blind dusk. As his eyes adjusted, he watched the lights of the cylinders blink steadily in the darkness.

Still whimpering, the girl didn't seem to notice what was now happening to her arm: in the dimness, the technician and Sorcerer both could see a phosphorescent glow begin to spread down her arm from her elbow. It took on the same color as her skin, a pinkish paleness resulting from living indoors this past year.

At first it only lit her veins. The technician watched in rapt fascination as the delicate vessels in her hand and wrist slowly lit up, watched as the light increased bit by bit to extend, split as the veins branched out, and fade to a uniform glow in her fingertips as the veins became too small to differentiate.

Once the hand had lit up, it took a while for there to be any more visible progress. The serum was traveling too deep inside, the technician knew. Once it got to her heart, however, it would spread with amazing rapidity.

During the wait, the Sorcerer went out for coffee and the technician continued to check his equipment.

With no warning, the subject opened her eyes, saw her arm, and gave out a terrified shriek. It startled the technician. It became even more unnerving as the shriek turned to a wail, seemingly without reason. However, just as the technician was going to call his superior, he saw the glow spreading out over the girl's body from the center outward. Her torso lit up first, and then her limbs and neck, finishing with her face, feet and right hand.

She looks like some kind of magical creature, the young man thought. Ethereal, like she's going to disappear. Well, that's appropriate. She _is_ going to disappear.

He pushed the button that would let the Sorcerer know his subject was ready. The man returned, giving quiet instructions to two guards in the hallway. The technician didn't hear what was said, but he had a fairly good idea of what was going to happen.

The Sorcerer closed the door and strode into the room. Kneeling before the subject, he began to speak to her.

"It's not a very nice place to be, is it? I'm sorry we had to do all this, but it's going to help you, and lots of other kids."

"I wanna go home."

"I know, I know, it's scary. But you're a big girl, aren't you? And you're brave and good and smart. You did amazingly well on all the tests, you know."

She sniffed, and looked at the man's face for the first time. "I did?"

"Yes. You scored higher than all the other children we've tested, and they were some of the best kids I've seen. I think you're quite possibly the smartest, strongest and bravest child I've met."

With each honeyed word, the girl's panic quieted, and something else began to happen. The glow emanating from her brightened. It brightened enough to fill the room, turning the wall behind the slab into a grotesque tangle of shadows. The technician was pleased, knowing this was a better result than the Sorcerers had been hoping for from the first try. He moved his hand over a particular button, ready.

"And you're so beautiful. You're normally very pretty, but look how beautiful you've become right now. You're like a little angel, shining with grace."

The Sorcerer's warm smile and warmer words made the girl glow brighter and brighter, almost too intense to look at. When it seemed like there was no brighter the glow could become, the Sorcerer continued smiling beatifically at the subject and said in the same friendly tone,

"Freeze it."

The girl began to frown in confusion, but before a second had gone by the technician had pushed the button, and the dozens of needles that had been nesting peacefully in their tubes jabbed forward. As one, they stabbed the subject's flesh, penetrating her skin to inject the chalky liquid from the cylinders behind her. The girl spasmed, her eyes widened, and her mouth contorted around a long, soundless scream.

For the first time, the pain and fear did not drown out all else. Despite the torture, Celena still retained a sense of herself. From that grew indignation. How could they do this to her? She was the smartest, the strongest, the most beautiful, the best!

After only three seconds, but what had felt like hours, the needles withdrew. The subject glared at the Sorcerer.

"Why are you treating me this way?! I'm the best!"

The man stood and chuckled.

"Think you're so wonderful, do you?" he mocked. "Why are you here, then? If you're so smart, why did you follow us and let yourself be captured?"

The girl's face fell, and the glow began to diminish.

"And while we're at it, if you're really the best, why doesn't your brother love you enough to come rescue you? He hasn't even tried."

At that, the Sorcerer gestured, and the technician pushed another button. A moving image of a blonde teenage boy jumped to life on the wall, showing him practicing with a sword, eating, tending his sick mother at home. The last image was of him laughing happily. The girl's eyes darted back and forth across the images, a look of growing horror on her face. The glow, which had fallen back to its original dimness, began to grow again.

"See how happy he is now that you're gone? He never loved you. You're alone here."

The subject started to breath rapidly and screwed her eyes shut. She shook her head violently from side to side. Now she was shining brightly again.

"No! He's just waiting until the right moment! He still loves me!"

"Poor child. Too arrogant to understand that she's alone," the man continued. Leaning forward until his face was not six inches from hers, he added in a low, menacing tone,

"Alone and never going to be loved again."

She burst out into tears, and was once more glowing too brightly to look at. The Sorcerer smiled.

"Freeze it."

Another push of the button, another injection, another silent scream. Once she could breathe again, the girl sagged in her bonds, sobbing raggedly.

This time, the physical pain floated on top of the deeper, permanent pain of abandonment. Celena could feel her new stubborn pride rise up, try to overtake the pain and fear. She looked up and glared at the Sorcerer.

"I don't care! I'm strong enough to kill you one day! Let me go or I'll kill you!" The glow did not diminish, this time.

The Sorcerer stopped smiling and raised an eyebrow.

"Are you threatening me?"

"Let me go! You couldn't handle me by yourself! That's why you need the guards! One day I'll get a chance and you won't have guards!

"I think you are threatening me." He stepped slowly around to face her. "Let me show you what happens to people who threaten me."

The man stood, and without moving his gaze from the subject's face, called to his assistant. "Call him in."

The technician pushed another button. Unseen and unheard by the three people in the operating room, a buzzer went off down the hall.

"I take threats very seriously," the Sorcerer was saying. "I hope I don't have to do this to you one day, but if I must, I must." He sounded almost sad.

The technician noted that the girl's glow was still as bright as any of the artificial lights used all over the complex. He was surprised. They had all expected the glow to grow and diminish repeatedly, not hold steady like this after just the first psyche freeze. If the procedure continued in this vein, he thought, the results might be even more potent than they had thought.

As the Sorcerer was busy being menacing and the technician contemplating the possible outcomes of the experiment, someone knocked on the door. The metallic sound resonated in the room, and the technician opened the door to see four men escorting a fifth. That man—if you could call him that, the technician mused—was in chains, binding his arms behind his back and hobbling his legs together. His dark fur was matted and bloody in places, and his snout muzzled. The guards ushered him into the room, and as the beastman took in the scene, he growled and threw his weight forward towards the Sorcerer. The good doctor lost his composure for the first time that evening, taking a few steps back before he realized that the beastman was securely held between the four guards.

"Jajuka!" the girl called. She was about to ask him to save her, but she saw how he was chained. She didn't understand why he had let them do that to him. He was always so strong. Even so, she was thrilled to see him, since she _knew_ that Jajuka loved her and would never leave her. _He_ knew she was the best.

"Celena!" he said through his teeth. The muzzle left him no other option. "You evil men! How could you do this to a child?!" the beastman raged, dragging his jailers forward as he once again tried to reach the Sorcerer. This time, however, the man was prepared, and smiled disdainfully at the canine's futile attempts.

"You see here, child? This man threatened to, oh, what was it you said?" he directed this last to the beastman, and the girl could tell that the Sorcerer was not asking because he had forgotten.

The captive obliged him in his theatrics. Straining futilely once more, he screamed louder than Celena had ever heard him. "I TOLD YOU I'D RIP YOUR GUTS OUT WITH MY TEETH IF YOU TOUCHED HER, YOU AMORAL FILTH!"

The Sorcerer sneered at him. "What a barbarian. Guards," he nodded at the men holding the beastman. "Teach him some manners."

The guard closest to the door took the pole he was holding and did something to the handle that made the end crackle and spark. The technician could just make out the two prongs that channeled the force. It was one of Zaibach's best hand-to-hand weapons, all the more fearful for its mysterious power. Even after years of working with the stuff, the young man still marveled at the Sorcerer's ability to harness raw natural force.

Celena watched, frightened and prideful and abandoned. The guard with the pole lowered his weapon, and despite Jajuka's continued struggles, the rest of the guards fell away at the same moment. The man with the pole jabbed it forward, connecting with the beastman's side.

A terrible howl of pain nearly deafened everyone in the room, and stabbed straight to Celena's heart. Jajuka fell to his knees as the guard removed the pole from his side, breathing hard and whimpering.

"Jajuka! JAJUKA!" Celena cried. She threw herself against the shackles, nearly dislocating her shoulders in her efforts to break free and help her friend. "Stop it, stop hurting him!"

"We'll let him decide that, shall we?" The Sorcerer suggested. "So, beastman, what do you have to say? Did that shock any civility into you?"

Jajuka was still panting. He slowly lifted his head, and there was no mistaking the pure hatred that shone from his eyes or the rage in his low voice. "What you do to me doesn't matter. Only Celena. I'll rip you to shreds one day for that."

"I thought so. Watch, child. This is your fault, anyway." And the man gestured once more to the guard, who jabbed the fallen beastman in the neck, this time.

As Jajuka howled and curled in on himself, Celena felt her heart break. It was too much to have the only person who cared about her reduced to such agony and humiliation. She felt her heart break, and gathered up the sharp remains to fling at the Sorcerer.

"STOP IT! STOP IT! IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT WE DO OR SAY, YOU'LL JUST HURT US ANYWAY! STOP HURTING HIM! STOP IT OR I'LL KILL YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!"

As the girl raged, the technician noticed something that no one, not in all of their research and theorizing, had predicted. The pale white glow of the subject's skin seemed to have reached the point, several minutes before, where it could become no more intense. But the girl's emotions were still increasing, and they were not only finding expression in her embittered, mad screams.

As she thrashed and yelled, her eyes began to glow red.

The Sorcerer must have noticed it too. He was staring at the subject as though he had just found gold where he had expected to find copper.

"—HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU! I WILL KILL YOU! ALL OF YOU! I'LL KILL YOU SLOWLY! MAKE YOU SUFFER! I'LL PULL YOUR GUTS OUT WITH _MY OWN _TEETH, AND CUT YOU INTO TINY BITS! I'LL TIE YOU DOWN TO THIS TABLE AND STAB YOU ALL OVER! I'LL CUT OFF YOUR HANDS! I'LL KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL—"

Still staring at the subject in wonder as she continued detailing her future revenge, the Sorcerer gave the order to complete the procedure. The technician wouldn't have heard it over the child's voice if he hadn't been paying utmost attention.

"Freeze it."


End file.
